I hear this question thrown around a lot.  Most of my friends have some sort of tattoo, and those who visit from say, the Midwest (generally), are often startled by the sheer ubiquitousness of tattooery here in central Massachusetts.  And, often the inroad to conversations on the subject begin with the most naive of questions, "does getting a tattoo hurt?"

My personal family-of-origin tradition regarding thanksgiving revolves around the break taken after the turkey day meal, but before we indulge ourselves in devouring the awaiting rice pudding and chocolate mousse.  In my family, we go around the table and say what we are thankful for from the year past.   It can be intense.  Often, upon honest reflection of your year in front of your family, there are tears.  There are also laughs and most importantly, the process of being honest together and sharing thanks and love as a group creates a tangible family bond.  A feeling of closeness across a group that allows such raw emotions, mostly hidden in our public lives, to exist and be heard in a non-iudgmental way. It is a gift.  

As we pull up to the driveway of another thanksgiving, i am once again left thinking about the imprint family makes on us all.  This past year has been critical in my own personal development of what family is and what it means to me personally.  In the process of executing a wedding, there is internal pressure to surround yourself with those people who have most brought you to that moment.

and inevitably, they can't all be there.  some are missed because they live across the country and have far too many children (i kid [pun!]).  Others are missed because their candles blew out long ago.  Others less long ago.

as we come upon the one year anniversary of my uncle's passing, i still revel in the happy memories of the "outlaw in-law" who dazzled us with knowledge ranging from fix-it man to culinary expert.

but in order not to depress us with its cruelty, life also springs up anew, and shines it's big-eyed glory,  hope, and promise of good yet to come.  And when you're lucky, this life looks like this.

my niece Sheriff Myla

When I came back from living abroad in Australia the first semester of my Junior year in college, i briefly lived  with a close college friend who was a studio art major.  Briefly, as in, 2 weeks.  I then moved, as semi-scheduled, into the extra room of the senior year house of my best guy friend.  But i already digress.

Now, first some facts about this early living situation.  This woman i moved in with is still an incredibly close friend of mine.  She was also (and IS also) an incredible artist (and now also an architect) .  And finally, I was moving into an apartment that she had already been living in for 6 months.

All of these bits of flowery potpourri are just to dull the blow of what's coming next, which is the living "situation" that i returned to find.  Here I come, bags of college-ready crap in hand, to find a living room . . . . oh wait, i couldn't find the living room, because it lay there, trapped and obscured, by a cacophony of paint and life supplies.  I seriously couldn't see the floor anywhere under the thunderous mess.  As i high-stepped my way across the "living space" i would focus in on tiny little tableaus of homemaker grotesquery: Two gleaming pools of red and blue paint, purpled in the middle, being held in tiny cups made out of the shag carpet they rested on/in.  The overall feel of the apartment was one of living inside a giant piece of modern art with WET PAINT sign still hanging on it.  

I moved, because i wanted to live with "my boys".  But if I'm being completely honest with myself, i also moved to remain friends with my goddess of an artist friend.  I didn't want to have to kill her.

This story is important as it was the first, and perhaps the only time, where i found myself in a living situation that was just "too dirty" for me to be happy in.  And a lot of it was the "wet mess".   As i've said before on the blog, clothes on the floor don't bother me, cornflakes and milk on the floor, however, does.

My personal line of tidiness concerning my living space says a great deal about me as well.  If it takes a palette-like rug to phase me, i am probably messier than the average human being.  Or at least, my tolerance is higher than most.  My sensitivity to this particular measure has been skewed by years of co-habitating with a best friend who is more on the OCD side of the cleanliness spectrum.  Thus, i have felt slovenly by comparison most of my young adult life.  And now, having a wife who also finds safety in wide swatches of dusted and polished surfaces, i fear i may be the "messy one" for my adult adult life as well.  I have accepted this.

But more and more as I get older, i have found that many of the people in my figurative neighborhood have formed an altogether new relationships with cleanliness around the home.  (I am not saying that what follows is a new phenomenon, but rather that it is new that i have given it much thought).  Somewhere along the line, the cleanliness of one's house became a proxy for:

1) how together you are as a person.
2) how matured you are.
3) how well your relationship is going.
4) your mental health.
5) if you actually qualify as an adult.

This is where i have a problem with cleanliness.  Put simply, if cleanliness is next to godliness, what does that mean for an atheist?

I admit that having things in order provides a calm of organization and knowing that everything both has a place and is in it.  But i can't understand how not feeling this way is at all maladaptive.  And we aren't talking hoarders either.  If you house is cluttered, and it's all coupons, or box tops, or cats, or doomsday supplies, i encourage people to judge away.  But when i walk into my friend's mother's house in western Mass and find a great room with murals haphazardly coating the walls and piles of interesting papers and magazines stacked across old wood tables, i see beauty.  It looks like a room you would find at Hogwarts.  A room expectant of wonder and encouraging exploration.  A room pregnant with possibility.

Others would call this women a pack-rat.  The room gets plenty of natural light, and so you can see the dust that has landed on the tops of the tallest stacks of records.  The room is unclean by the standards of  respectable mothers and fathers everywhere.  Were my parents to walk in on this room in the center of my future home, they would be forced to expend great energy NOT commenting on how the room looks.

Again. I don't get it.  I mean, couldn't you imagine Gandhi not caring where he put his robes down after a few days of hunger fasting.  What about Napoleon?  You think that little shit ever picked up for himself after conquering a new land.   No way in hell.

And the Napoleon example (more-so than the Gandhi one, which was mostly meant for humor) actually gives away what i think is at the root of this bias to believe that what is clean is what is good and right.  Napoleon didn't pick up after himself because he was rich and powerful enough to have people do it for him.    Hmmmmmm.  This sounds familiar.  It sounds familiar because in the history of feeling judged about my cleanliness by folks, almost all of the "worst offenders" of person-centeric judgements based on home cleanliness have had outside help in managing the cleanliness and upkeep of their homes.  Once again, the bias come from the "haves" and is projected onto the "have-nots"

And i feel ridiculous calling myself a have-not, because of the ridiculous amount of privilege i was both born into and live amongst -- but in another way this emphasizes my point.  Even with a wife, two jobs, and a manageable sized living space, my wife and I simply don't have the extra income laying around to hire someone to dust and do the laundry for us.  I assure you that if we did, our house would always be a ton clearer.  Obviously.  But somehow it gets lost that having a personal cleaning service is so far across the privilege spectrum, that most people can't even fathom its size and shape all the way over in "trying-to-meet-their-familys'-needsville."

And that's why, when adults from privilegetown visit their kids in needsville, it almost never goes well.  "What aren't you older, making more money, and living in a style of life we've grown accustomed to?"  "Mostly because we work full time and we don't have Sally coming over on Thursdays to strip the sheets, wash the towels and vacuum the carpets."

But we don't talk like this.  We don't talk of privilege or responsibilities or priorities.  The actual conversation goes like this,  *parents scans the room* "Well, your place looks (scan around a bit more) nice.? (it is half statement half question)  *kid reading the insincerity loud and clear* "Um . . thanks Mom and Dad." (there is no thanks in his/her thanks)   And they both walk away feeling bad.  The older adults wondering where they went wrong that their child either is forced to live in "such squaller" or, even worse, chooses to live like this.   The young adult walks away wondering why he/she was just subjected to such uninvited and unnecessary insult -- and the distance of age and mutual misunderstanding somehow widens unnecesarily.

It all seems like much ado about nothing.  No one has won or lost a Nobel prize based on the number of sweatshirts they left on the floor.  I certainly haven't seen any studies linking picking up after oneself with success in computer programming (i bet we would find that more mess is actually correlated with more success in the computer sciences -- but i digress again).

I mean, does everything have to be right or wrong.  Black or white.  Does clean have to equal good?  And if so, does that leave messiness as bad by default.  Why can't we, like the dust-bunnies that have  grown into a warren behind my couch, live in that middle space between Comet and vomit.  A place where our relative neatness is just another compatibility factor like snoring, or shared extra-curricular activities.

I'm not saying we have to give a voice to mess-loving Americans, we just need the godliness of cleanliness to be more humane.

Ok.  Let's get the spelephant in the room out of the way right away.  When writing an advice column, it is important to spellcheck.  especially the word "advice".  Especially if that word is in the title of your post.   Message received.

*warning.  from here on the post gets graphic.  end warning*

i have a sty.  and it is wondrous how a small ingrown hair under my eyelid has the ability to physically and psychologically break me down. i have been soaking my eye--with a washcloth, in the shower, with homeopathic anti-sty drops-- for the better part of 48 hours.  So much so, that now, in addition to a swollen eyelid, i have my own red badge of courage circling round the entire eye-socket.  I may have even burned the eyelid itself with the constant cycle of hot compresses.  The sensation is one of having a minuscule piece of fiberglass embedded, sword-in-the-stone style, adjacent my tear duct.  the human inclination is to try and kneed the enlarging bubble of puss out the duct.  My slightly more OCD approach is very similar except the manner in which i attack the problem more resembles an animal with it's paw catch in a trap.  in my attempt to kneed the lid, i am half-peeling it off my face.  The red zone around my eye deepens to a more crimson hue.

I try to ignore it.  go about my business.  play some video games. write.  talk on the phone.  but none of it is normal.  i do all these things distracted, always half-paying attention to the scratch scratch scratching against the back door of my corneal lens.  99.9% if my body is operating at maximum capacity, and yet the entire machine is incapacitated by this well-placed ingrown invader.

 It has me collapsing in on myself.  Doubting my ability to help others as i act out my Möbius strip of obsessive compulsiveness, like a glass cleaner seeking the perfect spit-shine from the tinted windows of my soul.  And the whole process leaves me feeling weak.  Weak, as this tiny non-sensient invader has taken over my life without permission.  Weak, as I awake beaten, as a boxer, eye swollen shut with the crusted over reminder of yesterdays defeat at my own hands.  the hands of my enemy.

When i hug my dog.
i hug him with my worries.
i hug him and i tell him, "holy shit.  i am going to die some day."
i hug him and tell him how weak i feel.  how worried i am.  and how fast it all seems to be going.

and he lets out a soft sigh that is his version of a purr.  a sign of total contentment.
he sighs at me and says, "it's all ok."
we have this moment and we are together and that is enough.
he sighs to remind me how frivolous my worries are.
he sighs to remind me that he is mine, and i am his.
and that promise deserves a tomorrow.

this is the love between a man and his dog.
while he was the one abandoned,
i am the one left fearing abandonment.

Dash-point wednesday.  Do the Dash.

- Today I am wearing a sweatshirt over my sweatshirt.  While the first reason for this is that it is incredibly cold outside today, the larger reason is because my wife has not shown me where she "packed up my winter clothes."  This includes all of my coats.  Of note, the container with all of her winter clothes in it was miraculously left resting comfortably in our guest bedroom -- and not in the attic with my stuff.  The Sneak sneaks again.

- Obviously the election is in the forefront of people's minds.  There is a lot of discussion in my facebook feed regarding the number of political posts on Facebook.  Whether or not this is: annoying, the correct place for discourse, shouting into the wind, etc.  There was another strain of conversation concerning the vitriol expressed by both supporters of the President's victory, and by Mitt Romney lamenters.  Here's is my takeaway from all of this discussion:  I think that its all good (as long as there is no violence).  Let's indulge people with the feeling that they are wrapped up in their countries political process.  Let people use their voice, in whatever form they might have it, to express their beliefs.  And of course we won't agree with all of them.  Some are going to be friggin bonkers (we are ALL looking at you Donald Trump).  But better we have a cacophony of citizenry fighting to make themselves heard than an apathetic populous, unconvinced of their personal power to enact change.

-New York and New Jersey are still in severe disaster mode, and with a new storm coming tonight, the danger and devastation in that region can not be understated, so please don't think my next comment has anything to do with the seriousness of the current situation in the Northeast.  But.  and you knew there was a but.  I am struck, when watching news coverage about the situation in NYC, how different the tenor of the newscasters is.  And potentially it is due to the fact that they are reporting from New York in many cases, and therefore this disaster is quite literally close to home than say, Katrina.  But I keep getting this feeling that there is a subtext to their pleas for help and contextualization of the disaster that says, "The devastation and suffering is still ongoing tonight in New York . . ." [*begin subtext* and these are white people!]  It's as if it location of the hurricane affects its interpretation.  Or perhaps it's just the first time in awhile a hurricane has hit an area that believe global warming is real.

- I saw a figure a few days ago that 25% of soldiers who return from active duty have some form of PTSD.  That is CRAZY (... and some of them are white people!)!  One in four.  If you are trying to construct an argument for how inhuman war is, start with this.  At a minimum (remember that PTSD is only one condition that can result from disturbing experiences) one in four brains is traumatized from the experience of going to war.  Our humanity rejects it.   This number also reinforces the responsibility we owe to the men and women who selflessly put their own lives at risk for this country.  Whether you believe in the job or not, unless you'd rather do it -- give some massive props.  And certainly don't leave the population who defended this country with the promise of an education and health care upon their return, left bearing the financial AND emotional scars of this war.  Here is my idea on this topic.  America spends more on our military than all of the other next biggest militaries combined.  How about we put veteran benefits et al. under the umbrella of the military budget.   That way, without cutting military spending (which some find taboo), we can use that money to ensure our military's future (including veterans) is secure both on and off the battlefield.

to be honest.  i've kinda of painted myself into a corner with this whole advice giving post.  Don't get me wrong -- i've got at least ten things to tell ya'll, but it is a bit daunting to say that these are the "10 best pieces of advice i've given or received."   So, because it's my blog and i get to change the rules to suit my needs, i'm gonna say these are 10 top pieces of advice i've given or received.  What a world of difference a little word rearrangement can make.

oh, and, these are just the first 5.

1) "In love (and often sex), it is not about your batting average, but rather your number of at bats."

this one is mine.  and it's wildly true.  People spend entirely too much time fretting about rejection.  Or worrying about the potential for rejection.  Rejection needs to be considered more and more like a glancing blow.  you have to embrace rejection, drink it in and let it fill you.  Realize your ability to survive it, and then move forward less encumbered.  The other option, is that it paralyzes you.  slows your confidence and forward momentum until you find yourself staying on your couch more, and experiencing others less.   And thats where it can really hurt you.  Cause love and sex is a numbers game people.  The more people you meet, the more your dating pool grows, and the chance of a compatible mate rises.  Also, by interacting with more people, you gain a finer understanding of what you want from a relationships/sex.  So, as my staying goes; Don't worry about striking out, just make sure you get out there and take your swings.

2)  "I have learned to accept the fact that we risk disappointment, disillusionment, even despair, every time we act. Every time we decide to believe the world can be better. Every time we decide to trust others to be as noble as we think they are. And that there might be years during which our grief is equal to, or ever greater than, our hope. The alternative, however, not to act, and therefore to miss experiencing other people at their best, reaching toward their fullness, has never appealed to me. " -Alice Walker


3) There's only one thing that I know how to do well
And I've often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And that's be you,
Be what you're like,
Be like yourself.
-they might be giants