I've Failed and That Is Why I Succeed

I've failed over and over again...and that is why I succeed. 

Michael Jordan had a poster with that quote on it years ago. That poster combined with the right 90's sports movie can get you killed.

I can do a lot of things if I put my mind to it. Sports isn't one of them. I JUST cracked 5'7. As of my recent doctor visit, I am now finally just one inch shy of the lie that I've been putting on my drivers license since I was about sixteen. Back then I saw the question as a goal more than a current state of being. Anyway, I'm short and if I'm just 5'7 now then you can safely assume that I was even shorter back in the 9th grade mid-puberty.

A buddy of mine convinced me to try out for basketball with him. I played casually after school with my friends and I was really, really good...in my mind. I could grab the rim at only 5'3. I could hit 80-90% of my shots just inside the arc. The only problem I had was getting to the arc (dribbling), remembering plays, and stopping other people from making shots at the other end of the court (defense). Outside of that, and maybe, you know, being able to make the shot if someone was guarding me...I was really good.

Oh yeah, there was this whole issue of coordination where I found it easier to make a three pointer than to try and make a layup on a fast break. Anyway, my friend convinced me to try out with him. The whole time I'm screwing up left and right. I can't remember the plays, I'm losing my assignments and the worst came when I kept passing the ball to people who weren't on my team. My friend was there 100%.

He worked with me through the plays after practice. He kept encouraging me to hang in there. He quoted that stupid ass Jordan poster to me. He was really good and didn't want to see me give up on myself. So I kept at it because of him.

Notable things that have happened over the course of me trying to play ball:

• Knocked a tooth loose


• Briefly lost consciousness when a fast break pass hit me in the temple


• Went up for a rebound, woke up in the locker room (elbowed in forehead...concussion)

So on the last day of practice the coach asks me to stay behind. I already know what he's gonna say. At least I thought I knew. He tells me flat out that I suck (I got that part right). There is no way in hell that I'm going to start, but I made the cut. (Surprise, surprise) The only thing is that they have let's say 15 spots available and 18 guys trying out. Two guys just quit because of their parents telling them to focus on school so that leaves 16 people trying out for 15 spots.

The two bottom people were me and my best buddy who kept encouraging me to play. All this time, I assumed my friend was good enough to make the cut, but the coach tells me that he sucks more than I do. At least I can shoot and rebound. My friend can't do anything of use. The coach says, "Listen, the spot is yours if you want it, but I have to be honest. You are very fast. You beat everyone in those suicides and I think you have the stamina to run track. You should try it out, but you know that you can't do both spots here. So, it's up to you. If you want the spot, it's yours, but your friend gets cut. If you give it up, I think you have a bright future running track."

The next day my friend "consoled" me for not making the team and telling me that he'd do everything in his power to help me make it next year like he did. To this day he still doesn't know.

The Greatest Show on Earth

So I took my daughter to the circus over the weekend (Yes, two posts in one week. I'm amazed too). It didn't go as I expected. Chris Rock explained it very well. His kids are rich, so he has nothing in common with them. They're his kids, yes, but their backgrounds are totally different. Same here.

The sheer notion that we had seats in section 121 completely eclipses the collective weight of any ten happy memories of the circus that I had as a kid. When I was little we sat on the roof of the DC Armory to watch the circus. I didn't even know they had animals there because we were so far away. We walk into the Verizon Center this weekend and, not only are we on the first floor, we actually had to walk DOWN some stairs to get to our seats. Did my daughter appreciate it? Nope. Half the time she was looking back at the poor people up in the rafters. The other half she was running up and down the row.

Then my friend who invited us to go was nice enough to buy my daughter a tambourine that lit up. She dropped that thing like five times. I was so embarrassed. Do you have any idea how much I used to beg for a sword at the circus? I put that thing on my Christmas list to Santa Claus (no joke).

"Dear Santa, I still want Optimus Prime, but in March can you give my mother an extra $20 on her paycheck so we can get a sword from the circus?"

Nine times out of ten, my mother looked at me like I'd asked her to give me a bone marrow transplant when I asked for a sword. She was so good at crushing dreams that she told me I wasn't getting a sword before we even got to the damned circus. "Look, we going to the circus. I aint got no money to buy you anything, because I spent half of my money buying these tickets, so I suggest you eat before we leave. Don't ask me for no sword when we get there, because I'm not buying you one. Fix your face. If you got a problem with it, we can stay home."

Sidebar: One year my grandmother took me to the Armory to buy the sword outside and then turned around and took me back home. I called her bluff on "Do you want the sword or do you want to go to the circus?" I lost. I thought there was no way she'd walk all the way down there to buy the sword and not go in. Yeah, I spent the whole night in my bedroom looking at pictures of animals in my encyclopedia and trying to remember what those animals did at the circus the previous year. Ever so often, I turned off the light and lit up the sword.

Anyway, my daughter didn't bow or kneel or curtsy as a show of gratitude for that tambourine like I would've back in the day.

The final straw came when my daughter asked to leave during intermission. "Let's go home!" WHAT!? At first I thought she mistook it for the end, but even when it started back up she looked at me and said, "Put on coat? Put on hat? Go to train?" Do you have any idea how many birthdays I had to give up in order to go to the circus?

My mother used to act like it cost $300 a ticket to go and I had to negotiate away actual holidays. "Now you know the circus is coming up. We can go, but that means we're not going to be able to go to Wild World for your birthday." The circus is in March. My birthday is in July. Either she picked cotton for a living or I was being played. My daughter is at the circus and I haven't threatened to take away Kwanzaa or anything and yet she wants to leave? Okay.

I know where we won't be going next year.

 

No, I'm Not Dead

I've been holding out on posting for a while because I'm not really in the frame of mind to be funny. While I see nothing wrong with posting serious things from time to time, there is such a thing as overkill, and I don't really believe that the stuff I'm dealing with would do anything other than depress you. Perhaps there is a slight possibility that it could serve as a PSA to make you appreciate what you have, but you could watch one of those commercials with the hungry children for that. But the number of people emailing, calling, texting and IM'ing me to see if I'm alive is increasing so here I am.

As a child, I often thought that instead of siblings to talk to God gave me the ability to talk to myself. I have a weird mind that remembers a lot of stuff in intricate detail and just a very strange way of processing things. Lately I've been down in the dumps and I had a really bad day last week. I'd go so far as to say I hit rock bottom. This admission is not a cry for help and certainly not a telethon where I have operators standing by for people to call me to cheer me up...But if you do want to call and make a financial donation starting somewhere in the $20-50 range, operators are standing by and we will mail you this limited edition autographed Ordale J Allen styrofoam cup--The Official Cup of Ordale J Allen.

No rock bottom, for me, is a good thing. There's no way to go but up. The realization that you've fallen as far as you could, slammed into the ground and you didn't die from the impact. So now, climb up and out of this hole. But that's not the "special" way that I view it nor the subject of today's post.

Last week, as I said, I hit rock bottom. I woke up the next morning and had this analogy where I saw myself as Bruce Willis in the back of the ambulance. (Huh?) You know how the old action movies from the 90s always ended with Schwarzenegger or Stallone sitting in the back of the ambulance. They were banged up and bruised to high hell and the chief of police/Army General/Whoever would come over and thank them for a job well done while the EMTs treated their wounds. They'd share some laugh or kiss the girl or whatever and the credits would roll. Well, as a kid I used to be fascinated by that scene because I'd think about how they barely made it through. A minute longer or one extra bad guy and they'd be toast, but they made it. I also used to think that now would be the perfect time for the bad guy from the impending sequel strike, but that's another story. They made it and that's all that counted. Well, that's how I saw myself last week. Rock bottom, but I made it!

Sadly, that's not how my life is going right now. About a day later after Rock Bottom Day, I got a call from my doctor with my lab results from my annual physical. Test results confirm that I'm still beautiful, but there is something wrong with some levels in my blood that make her a little concerned. She started explaining it, but doctors speak in a language that's just a few vowels short of being that Elfin language from The Lord of the Rings. All I know is that she gave me a phone number to call to schedule a follow up and the person answered the phone with, "Oncology Department." She spoke in her gibberish and the earliest they could see me is in two weeks. For those of you following at home, this is the SECOND time someone has mentioned cancer gradually in passing to me and told me to wait two weeks to find out more. (Worst. TV. Show. Ever.)

Now normally, I don't share this kind of stuff with people. I don't like pity and I keep my cards close to the chest, but I'm tired. Remember that strange analogy about sitting in the ambulance and the credits rolling? I want my credits. I don't want the sequel to start right now. The hero needs to go home and heal and put on some Ben-Gay. I need a breather. But life has other plans apparently. Now, I assume/choose to hope that because they want to see me in two weeks rather than the next day that I'm not too bad, but still. I got enough going on. I'm mentally and emotionally bankrupt right now.

But my brain is strange, as I said before. I remembered an interview with Muhammad Ali that I saw a long, long time ago in high school. He talked about how he trained for fights. I'm butchering this, but he said something along the lines of, "I run for miles and miles until my legs feel like I'm going to collapse and then I run some more. When I absolutely can't go any further, I stop. And THEN I begin my workout, my sparring and my training for the fight."

The true tests in life will come at you when you are least prepared and at your lowest. I mean, if you're in shape and ready then how can it really be considered a test? It's when you have nothing left in the tank...when you have no fight left in you...when you feel that you can't go on...that's when your challenge begins.

I remember a track meet years ago. It was the last one of the summer and my coach decided to sign me up for 5 races instead of my usual 3. Since I had to run each one twice (qualifying and actual race) that was a lot of running. I was dead tired by the end of the day. Hell, I was dead tired once I passed what would've been my usual last race (the third one) but I narrowly finished. Then this S.O.B. tells me he signed me up for one last race, my sixth! Are you kidding me? I could barely stand up. I had been out there since 8 that morning and it was like 10 at night with no food the whole day.

I lined up in the blocks and could barely hold myself up and then this stupid memory of one of those old Army commercials came on with the black guy flying the chopper saying, "This is for Mr ____ who told me to never give up. (Be ALL THAT YOU CAAAAN BE! GET AN EDGE ON LIFE IN THE AAARRMY!)" I don't know why, but I sprang out of those damn blocks at full speed. I was halfway through the race when I realized that I was supposed to be tired. I had a cramp in my abs, my legs were locking up but I felt no pain. I was coasting. I didn't win. lol Let me not build up your hopes of where this story is going, but I actually finished higher in that race (fourth, I think) than I ever did before. I killed my old time. I later died at home. LOL But I'll never forget that.

That's how I feel now. I'm not depressed. I'm not sad. I'm tired. I sure as hell am not happy, but I'm kinda cruising on autopilot I guess you could say. I've since gotten more bad news about someone other than myself that I won't go into (when it rains it pours), but I'm dealing with it. So...there may be some more extended breaks, but now you know what's going on (vaguely, at least).

When this all works out, it'll be a hell of a funny story (I hope).

Fly the Friendly Skies

I think I'm gonna go skydiving. I've never done it before. It was a goal of mine before the baby came, but once she got here I started to feel like it was no longer my life to risk. Once you have a kid you kinda have to put your own risky desires on the back burner. I still believe that, but I've been down in the dumps lately and can't seem to shake it. So I figure nothing makes a person feel more alive than thinking they're gonna die.

I remember sometime back in 2006 I was feeling a little down. I felt trapped in my dead-end job and stressed out. Then came a break in the clouds: The powers that be sent me on a two week business trip. I came back from that trip refreshed and ready for the world. I was so psyched when I got back that I put my nose to the grind and got a bonus and a promotion over the next couple of months. But it wasn't the trip that did it.

It was the flight there that breathed new life into me. I flew to Colorado, which is about as close to God as I've been, elevation-wise. I woke up on the plane right before we landed in Colorado Springs. I had an aisle seat, so I looked over to my left and saw the sky. No biggie, we're in a plane. What else would I see? I looked to my right and I saw the ground. Not part of the ground. I saw THE GROUND. Now let that marinate for a second.

In order for a passenger to see nothing but the sky in one direction and nothing but the ground in the other, the plane has to be tilted sideways. That's when realized I was kinda sliding to the right in my seat. We leveled out and as she was scurrying to the front of the plane, the flight attendant told me to turn off my iPod. I'm using the word "scurrying" for dramatic effect. It implies that she was moving swiftly and outside of the norm. I feel like saying "running for dear life" is too straightforward.

While "scurrying" she fell over to her side because the plane forgot how to fly. It started making this popping sound which does wonders for a person's confidence in it's craftsmanship. While she's falling to her side, I'm lifting up in the seat from what Physics would call inertia. My internal screams of "We're gonna die" were rudely interrupted by the pilot who came on the PA to say some nonsense about wind shears.

That's a term that I'd never heard before and I still need to write a letter to American Airlines to demand that they have dictionaries or glossaries, at the very least, of aeronautical terms. I still don't know the technical definition, but from what I surmised over the next--I don't know--five minutes of hell is that sometimes the wind can blow so hard that it gives the pilot an excuse to relive his glory days in the military.

Apparently, my pilot used to be Maverick from Top Gun. Before I get into that, I'd also like to take this moment to tell all of the pilots out there that there are just some things that you don't need to share with us. "Control had asked us to circle a while until the wind shears let up, but we're running low on fuel and need to go ahead and land..." IS NOT something I need to know. It says two things to me.

1) The experts on the ground think we should wait to land because now isn't the best time to try to land a plane.
2) Normally we'd listen but we don't have enough gas so we're coming down one way or another.

So anyway, after our heart-to-heart, the pilot tells us that we're gonna have to dive in order to get through these wind shears. "We'll be coming in faster than you may be used to." That was the moment when I saw the flight attendant sprint to her seat. We started "descending." That's a euphemism for flying full speed toward the ground.

The plane started bouncing up and down violently. I got that feeling in my stomach that you only get on roller coasters. As we got closer to the ground I felt us going faster. "Is he speeding up??? Does he not know what's at the end of this ride?" I started to think that this might be normal, so I looked at the flight attendant for comfort. I've been in turbulence before and the flight attendants usually sit there reading a book or something. Not this time. She did the Catholic cross across her chest and bowed her head.

We're gonna die.

We got to the ground but we were at an angle not conducive to landing a plane. He finally got us straightened out and then the wind picked back up just as he was trying to touch down. I felt the back wheel on the right hit the ground and then we bounced back in the air. The left wheel touched down the next time and we bounced again. Finally, I guess he just said the hell with it and put all the wheels down. It felt like we were running over railroad tracks or something. Then a loud noise and we stopped.

Honest to God, the first thing I did when I got off was kiss the ground. Bare lips on the cement outside our little puddle jumper. I have never been that scared in my life and from there, life had purpose. So...yeah I think I'll sky dive. It seems way less scary than that plane ride.

How Do I Say Goodbye to What We Had?

I was sitting in here just now when It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday came on. I immediately got depressed and happy at the same time. Am I the only person like that when the song comes on? If you grew up in the 90s then you know what I'm talking about. Just like you couldn't go to a black cookout without The Fresh Prince's Summertime coming on, you couldn't go to a single graduation or funeral without hearing Boyz II Men.

Everybody's favorite part: And I'll taaaaaake with me the memoriiiiies to BE my sunshine after the raaaaii(riffing, riffing riffing)iiiiiiin. (Then you do the serious face) It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday (high pitched).

What's funny is that back then I thought I could sing, so me and my friends had this fake me out group in middle school. It wasn't official. We didn't have a name or anything. Actually, the group didn't last longer than about a week or two. In true DC Public Schools fashion, we spent many a day playing spades and tonk in class, and one day somebody broke out in song. It might have been me, it might've been another guy. All I know is that two other people joined in and all it took was one pressed girl to say "Y'all don't sound half bad" to boost our little egos.

Because I had a grown man's facial hair at 11, I was naturally selected to do the deep voiced parts. Yep, we sat in class singing at a half whisper decibel because I think deep down we all knew that we couldn't sing, but we kept the lie alive in our hearts for a couple of days.

For me, the dream died around graduation time. It was the 90s so of course we picked It's So Hard... to be our song. Actually, we didn't pick that. Our teachers picked that. When they dragged us all into the auditorium and told us to pick a song, we voted on Tha Crossroads. Second choice went to 5 o' Clock in the Morning. Let that be a lesson to aspiring teachers out there. Don't let DCPS kids pick their graduation song. You don't even wanna know what third pick was (hint: Who's that peepin in my window? Pow, nobody now!).

So anyway, the main song was One Moment in Time and we had a girl in our class who could blow. I'm talking Showtime at the Apollo. The Boyz II Men song was going to be the first round. I'd lied so much about being able to sing that my name came up to sing the song. I got called into the music classroom and the teacher asked me to sing.

I sounded like somebody was beating a squirrel to death. Surprisingly, nobody laughed. The handful of girls that mattered said, "He's just nervous." (No, he's not.) So they went on and planned for me to sing the song with two of my friends. Lucky for me, I went to Ocean City the weekend before and I got really sick. I came to school looking like death and told them that I just couldn't do it. My buddy went up there and sang and I swear it made my tortured squirrel voice sound like Luther Vandross.

I can't remember if people laughed out loud or just quietly to themselves, but they laughed. I was so glad I dodged that bullet. But talking about the whole thing just makes me miss middle school.  But you know what...
I'll take with me the memories to be my sunshine after the rain...

 

Unslumping Yourself Is Not Easily Done

I've been pretty down the last few days and it all came to a head today. If I can be dramatic for a minute, I feel like I'm in a Greek tragedy. I spent my entire life trying to avoid ending up like some of the adults around me and it seems like my efforts to avoid it just steered me in that direction. It hurts when you find out that it takes a lot more than an oar and a moral compass to navigate life's waters.

Sometimes I try to catch myself when I realize that I'm "sorry-ing for myself." Other times I just let it go. Today was one of those days. You know how it is when you start feeling down. Eventually you jump sides and start speaking for the prosecution inside your head when you should be on the defense. I started thinking about all that's happened and the extent of my failures. Then I got on the subject of my daughter.

More than anything in life, I just want to be a good father. I wondered if maybe staying home for three years was a mistake. Would she have been better off in daycare. She seems to be doing so well there and I can see an immediate improvement in her social skills. As crazy as it sounds, I started thinking that maybe nothing special came from my staying home with her. That thought combined with my reflecting on all of the craziness that's been going on since the year started lead me to think: I've failed. What am I doing with my life? Where am I going. Do I even know what I'm doing? Is this a chance to start my life over or am I deluding myself?

Just then, I heard a very loud "English as a second language" voice coming from the living room:

CONGRATULATION! Today is your day. You're off to gweat pwaces. You're off and away. You have bwains in your head and feet in your shoe. You can steer yourself any direction you chew. You're on your own and you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who decide where to go.

I crept down the hall and found her sitting on the couch reading her second favorite book, "Oh the Places You'll Go!" I don't know if it was just the sight of her reading a book that she'd memorized thanks to me reading it 50 times a day or if it was the perfect timing of picking that book at that moment, but I felt better immediately. I remained hidden on the other side of the wall as I listened to my motivational speaker.

I sorry to say but sadly it true that bang ups and hang ups can happen to you...
All a-wone whether you like it or not. A-wone will be something you'll be quite a lot...And will you succeed? YES!!!!! You will indeed. Ninety eight and thwee quarts GUARANTEED! Kid, you'll move mountains!

You're off to gweat pwaces. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting so get on your way!

You know what? I feel better. She sure as hell didn't learn that in daycare.

Weatherman Performance Review

I really wanna know what the performance metrics look like for a meteorologist. I almost got fired from the movies back in high school for quoting the wrong price for a large popcorn to a mystery shopper. How in the hell can you shut down the Federal and District Governments and still be employed the next day? I have to believe that your error carries a bit more weight than me adding a quarter to the price of a Sprite. Coca-Cola's stock price didn't plummet in the market the next morning after my error.

Schools and libraries closed. People didn't go to work. Metro didn't make the money they needed to continue fixing one broken escalator step at a time. Hot dog vendors and sole proprietorships went without the ever-important day's revenue. Some form that was supposed to be mailed out no later than C.O.B. today is still sitting on a desk. It's kind of a big deal. All of this because you and your buddies have been on television all week telling us that the first piece of the sky would dislodge around midnight with the remainder falling from the heavens over the course of the day.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that meteorology isn't an exact science, but I wonder if they know that. Their confidence is misleading. It's gotten to the point that they tell you the weather hourly now. How many times have you checked the weather online to find that you apparently have a force field over your neighborhood, because it's supposed to be raining, but all you see are clear skies? If you can't tell me what's happening right now, how can you tell me what's going to happen three days from now?

So going back to my initial question, what's on their performance review? I've never heard of a meteorologist being fired for being wrong. Here in DC, the same five weathermen from my childhood are still on TV today. I like them, so none of this applies to them, even though they mess up at times too. I guess I'm biased because I feel like I know them. Topper Shutt, Sue Palka and the gang gave me hope many a night before school as a kid. Tony Perkins killed it the next morning when we just had a light dusting. (DCPS OPEN ON TIME) Still, I wonder what's on their review.
1. Consistently places hand in correct spot on green screen
2. Moves out of the way for the weather "slide show" in time
3. Wears clothes that don't create an optical illusion or spawn an epileptic seizure in front of the green screen
4. When sitting at desk "downstairs in the weather center," makes sure the weather map screen saver is on before camera rolls