Juan's Blog

It was the worst of times, it was the BABY-est of times. The Supreme Court had become dominated by justices that could only be described by The New York Times and comparable news outlets as, “very young.”

The babies came in all shapes and sizes– one was very chubby and brown while another still was not-so-chubby and female. In fact, the only thing that could be said for certain about these babies was that they were radicals.

Indeed, three babies had been selected due to their anarcho-capitalist leanings. Elsa Thompson, for example, secured her position on the court after the right-wing media darling became an Internet sensation when a viral video of the twenty-month-old depicted her stance on the homeless. “Gedda job you bum!” the toddler had struggled to articulate as she threw a handful of pennies at a sleeping homeless man.

On the other hand, four of the baby justices were adamant supporters of labor unions, civil liberties and industrial regulation. In fact, the senior “baby justice” (as the younger justices have since been described by “comedic” productions such as SNL and Conan) was quoted, joking, “I wish [the protections the court established over a woman’s right to choose circa Jane Doe v. Alabama and Jane Doe v. Missouri] had been in place just four years ago. Maybe, I wouldn’t be in this godforsaken position,” referring, of course, to the hypothetical possibility of his own abortion.

Though the impetus for their fame and political personas were consistently orchestrated by their parents, no one seems to mind that the babies act as puppets. In fact, no one seems to mind  that these babies had never practiced law prior to being appointed to the highest court in the land. All that matters was that the babies were known for their hard-line stance on the issues that mattered to the people: gay marriage, abortion, guns, schools, guns in schools, pornography, pornography in schools, guns in pornography set in schools, and free speech.

Reflecting on how such a court could come to be, Harvard Professor of History, David Armitage, recalled, “It was sudden, really. All it took was the affirmation of Justice Barron Trump for the administration to realize the power they could secure could last more than mere decades. Scores of years will pass before Justice Trump leaves his seat, and I think that changed things.”

The evolution of the court was quick. By the time President Winfrey left office, the court resembled its current state with one notable exception: Justice Petunia “Baby Petunia” Olsen. Indeed, Justice Thomas “Tommy P.” Pope (4), Justice Charles “Chuckie” Fraser (5), Justice Baby “Adult” Smith (7), Justice Neil Patel (3), Justice Elsa “The Rock” Thompson (4), Justice Tupac “Freedom” Jones (3), Justice Barron Trump (22), and Head Justice Ruth “The O.G.” Ginsberg (97) had each been on the court when Justice Baby Petunia was appointed to her position to replace baby Elsa, 

who had passed suddenly from SIDS.

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE.

Written in 2018. RIP RBG, why would you do this to us

Your comments made me laugh. I hope school is going well. Re: Princeton, I would need to know who is asking.

Here is a story I wrote. It is exactly as good as you’d expect. The title of the story is “The Fires of Yolo County.” Yolo county is a real place, but the story is fiction. It may have something to do with climate change or capitalism’s negative impact on people and also where people live (Earth).

It was written during and inspired by real fires that ravages Yolo county and neighboring areas during the pandemic.

~~~~~~~~~~

A gentle breeze coated the tables and chairs with ash for the third consecutive day.

“Is there another fire today?” a patron queried. She knew there was, as did everyone. It was the third one this summer, but her idle chit chat prevented awkward lulls.

As the days passed, the sky darkened and the air grew harsher on the throat and lungs. Oddly enough, no one seemed to mention the air at all, giving even less thought to these conditions than they had the day before.

But the soot gradually spread its way down to the suburbs, hours inland from the bay. It was fire season in California, so perhaps the source wasn’t a single fire at all. After all, there are always summer fires in the arid California climate.

The next day, the dim morning sky lingered through the afternoon and evening.

In the city, a man wearing a surgical mask and a pressed suit walked into a coffee shop for a breath of fresh air. As he approached the front of the queue, he pulled back his mask, “Have you seen this fire in the news at all?”

The barista, a young man with a forgettable face, shook his head, “No.” The barista, a bit embarrassed, averted his gaze for a moment before his eyes rose to meet the stranger’s eyes. The stranger looked away.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the afternoon, dark clouds of smoke rolled in over the hills like fog. By the following week, the air reeked of ash. While no one knew where the fire was coming from, in the distance, people claimed they heard the wail of sirens.

In spite of the clamor and his wandering eyes, Isaac had yet to see a single response vehicle. His regular habits had also failed to inform him of any updates on the fires’ locations. He only knew that the quality of the air warranted the use of a mask.

Isaac emerged from his mother’s house on Monday morning, walking the same route he had always walked. The sun was shining bright, but its heat felt oddly weak. As he crossed the threshold of the front door, Isaac spotted some strange chalk drawings by the swingset in the park across the street. A pentagram in bright blue chalk was etched near a crude drawing of a demonic figure.

In childlike handwriting, a curious scrawl caught Isaac’s attention:

I’m gonna find

you and kill

you kid

~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday night, after his mother returned from work, she and Isaac walked around the neighborhood. The familiar jaunt was just uncommon enough to notice.

“Didn’t grandpa used to own a farm here?” Isaac asked.

“He worked here… He was told to buy land here— that they were going to develop. But he had just bought the house in Richmond… and the house in Mexico.”

“…we could have been land barons,” Isaac laughed.

“Yeah, we could‘ve…” 

The pair gazed at the charred mountains just across the freeway– a single row of houses and a small hill were all that separated their calm and quiet neighborhood from the busy throughway.

Isaac’s mother nodded, “It’s a good thing the wind is blowing in the other direction.”

“I guess…”

“It’ll burn out soon,” she assured him. “There’s no vegetation.”

“It’s all dry grass though.”

“There’s no trees or anything green.” There was a pause as they continued walking down the road— the park to their right.

“That’s right about where the Youngs live, isn’t it?”

~~~~~~~~~~

By the end of June, nothing had changed. The fire appeared in the news, though the coverage was minimal. The inferno and the destruction left in its wake seemed far away; and yet, there was a sense of unease that lingered in the air.

While Isaac appreciated his mother’s presence when she arrived home, there were long hours after Isaac returned from work in which her absence was not missed. Nevertheless, he was lonely. So, it was odd, he thought, that when he experienced a chance encounter with an old friend he should care so little. Odder still was that the peculiar nature of their meeting should feel so inert.

“John?”

John was walking through the grocery store with no cart and nothing in his hands. Yet he walked straight up to Isaac and seemed surprised to see him there.

John looked disappointed. His voice was tinged with pity, “You need to get outta here.” He shook his head and the somber grimace adorning his boyish face sent a tingle down Isaac’s spine. But before Isaac could think to respond, or even react, John turned away and walked straight out of the store.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was July when Benjamin returned to California. Isaac was quite excited to have a friend in the area even if only for a moment. While the two had no formal plans, the routine revealed itself to Isaac as the rituals rolled on. The indeterminate idea of catching up quickly resolving into a visit to Benjamin’s childhood home. The visit became the familiar activity of walking to the courts to prevent an awkward lull.

While the two played some variation of basketball, their small-talk scripts played autonomously.

“How’s the job?”

“How’s the family?”

“Do you still hang out with Rushil?”

“What’s Mary up to nowadays?”

And the larger, more sensitive questions reared their heads.

“Did you ever take another crack at stand-up?”

“No. It’s easy to head out to an open mic night, but to really do it– I’d have to travel. How’s the music going?”

“I’m working on another song now. I haven’t finished the last one, but this one’s a bit more simple, so I think I can really get it clean.”

All these queries were followed up by any number of familiar “do-you-remembers.” But as the patterns emerged, a newer, queerer pattern took Isaac by surprise as the pair returned to Benjamin’s family home.

Ben let out a deep sigh and spoke with a solemnity that Isaac seldom ever heard.

“You need to get outta here.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Isaac was on the train when he saw her. He had been lamenting Brazil’s elimination from the World Cup. Isaac felt no personal attachment to the sport. In fact, he never watched a match even during the finals. But, he liked to imagine his father was watching the games from wherever it was a dead man’s identity persists.

His pallid face contained no expression and his back was haunched into a familiar slouch when he noticed her noticing him. She looked as though she’d seen a ghost. At first, he almost wasn’t sure if it was her. But he also knew– not with his thoughts nor with his heart nor with his gut— he knew that it was her.

As she boarded the train into the city, she mouthed the words.

He knew what she was saying.

He knew that it was strange.

But all he could think about was how he could no longer remember the sound of her voice.

Isaac removed a glass from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with ice. As he began to pour himself some water, his mother came in from the yard. She had been working in the hot sun scouring old paint off of the deck in order to stain it. She walked into the kitchen and looked him square in the eye.

There was a moment when Isaac felt time stop. And then, she said it.

“It’s too late to get out, dear.”

Isaac remembered something strange when she said it— images of cold, withered hands assailed him.

“I’m sorry, son.”

~~~~~~~~~~

His mother’s hand was cold and unfathomably small when the doctor had told him it was time. Her face did not look like that of an angel or as though she were only sleeping. It didn’t look like hers at all.

Her clothes didn’t smell like anything either, but perhaps that was normal. Perhaps scents, and the memories of them are supposed to fade. And yet nothing still smelled like something.

Today, it smelled like smoke.

He had packed each blouse, each scarf, every sweater away into boxes, and he had left them in the closet— he could think of no other use for the space.

Today, as she spoke, his mother looked sad– unfathomably and unspeakably so.

Isaac turned toward the door and suddenly felt very hot. As he walked, his feet felt detached but heavy, and each step seemed to push the exit farther and farther away. From behind him, he could hear a voice— unknown but familiar.

“I’m sorry, but it’s much too late.”

Isaac’s steps seemed to sink deep into the floor as the familiar features of his home faded into the deepest blackness he had ever seen. He gasped in panic as he realized he couldn’t breathe. His body sank until it floated, and then, it sank deeper still.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Isaac was removed from his home, he had succumbed to smoke inhalation. On site EMTs were unable to resuscitate him. At 3:14 AM on Wednesday, the 23rd day of May in the year of our Lord 2018, Isaac Zimri was declared dead on the scene. The fire marshal traced the source of the blaze to piles and piles of rubbish, just waiting to ignite.

It was May 24th, 2018, and to the people of Yolo county, everything seemed to go on as normally as ever.

At the age of thirty-one, I am not going to pretend I am old or a veteran of the world in a meaningful sense. I will, however, describe my own experiences. I tend to take for granted the depth of my own experiences, and considering that I have changed careers once and hoping to do so again, I am hoping my self-reflection will help me discover new insights.

I began my career in marketing. My father worked in marketing for twenty-five years, and he was able to help me get a head-start with an internship. I worked in marketing in the e-commerce space for four years before he fell ill. He had developed a terminal illness, and while interviewing for Tesla, Google and other large companies– at the brink of a new stage of my career– I stopped my job search in its tracks. Third-round interviews for six figure positions– more money than I have seen in my life– were abandoned with brief apologies.

Instead, I returned to school. After repaying my student loans in full, I took out more and studied to become a teacher. I’m not sure what exactly pushed me to stick with this decision. Part of it was the work I had been doing as a water polo coach and the volunteering I had been doing as a bible study teacher. A large part was my desire to feel better about the way I lead my life. Marketing can feel icky sometimes. Sometimes it can feel like I am an omnivore hunting prey out of a taste for flesh and blood– simply to earn more and enjoy the luxuries afforded by a job done well. In each position I held, I would wind up spearheading some initiative to use private resources to do good. I helped my first workplace form a relationship with nonprofits in the area to protect animals and feed them with products we had that would have simply gone to the trash. I created a scholarship to help students pay for their tuition in my next position, and I helped make important, reliable information available to the public in both… however, everything I did was also for the bottom line.

When I started teaching, I knew that I wouldn’t change the world. I knew that teachers who want to change the world burn out. They feel defeated and empty after a few years of seeing their students fall through the cracks. I was told this by a veteran teacher, someone who had taught and encouraged me when I was in school. But, I also knew I loved the feeling of helping someone learn. I still do. When dots are connected and the eyes of a pupil light up– it feels euphoric.

My problem, however, is that I still did want to help people. It’s always been my problem. It’s been a problem because the world is a nasty place. There are structures and systems and they are designed to keep the rich wealthy and the poor dying. These systems have shaped our schools to the extent that I have to wonder what students are learning and if and how it is valuable.

For a year, I agonized in regret. I rued the day I abandoned financial success and a challenging career that had always created opportunities for growth. I could have become an email marketer, and like my mentor, even pivoted to an engineering position. I could have stuck with content and wound up at one of the most lucrative companies in the world. Why did I decide to change careers?

Why am I looking to change careers now?

I felt regret for months before I remembered. It is hard to be thankful for agony. It is hard to look back on months of suffering and hardship and to be grateful for electing to endure. When I think of the nights spent sobbing, those times spent holding my mom, or my dad’s eyes as he thanked me for being there… I cannot say I regret my decision. Even putting aside the students and their thank you cards and roses, even putting aside the growth I have experienced between then and now, I cannot for one second say that I regret any of the things that helped me be there for my parents in their time of need.

I think we forget where we were headed sometimes. I think we forget the reasons why we take a path once we pass the fork and it is long behind us. It’s easy to forget when our feet ache and our knees tremble from the weight of our travels, but I think regrets are just promises we are waiting to see fulfilled. I believe that there are moments of doubt in which the things we will someday cry about with nothing but love and warmth and gratitude simply appear to be mistakes. As I prepare to make another big change, I can see the fork again as I climb to a peak with the breathtaking vista of which I once dreamed. I can see it now and the path not taken. It looks easy. It looks boring. I can practically see myself walking along it, my head craned over at the path upon which I now stand– wondering, dreaming, waiting.

Would I have wished I had done things the hard way?

As I turn back to the path and the peak, I can see the trail and its dips and climbs. It splits again here and there. Some splits seem to make no difference in the quality of the hike. Others promise panic and warrant consideration. So, as I hike, I hold in my mind– which path will I take next?

I’m no stranger to hard hikes, but I do think the next path I take will be one that I enjoy. I deserve that. My legs are swollen, but they are strong. I would like to run free.

I think, in short, that I want to find a challenge that helps me grow but that keeps me comfortable. I want some time to heal.

Here’s a post I wrote 3 years ago after almost having my phone stolen on BART at the Oakland Coliseum stop (I think?).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He couldn’t have been older than fourteen. I didn’t get a good look at his friends, but they may have been a tad older. In retrospect, that’s probably the case.

I had spent the morning at a social justice conference for educators. It was a unique means of priming a 28-year old Chicano for a brush with some “hoodrats” as I sometimes think them to be– minority children making trouble– reflections of myself.

I was finally working on the train home, having left early. Enjoying the fruits of my irresponsible spending, I entered scores into my online gradebook on the newest and latest model of iPhone. It was decked out with completely unnecessary features, and I’m not sure why I elected to spend the money for things I didn’t need. Perhaps it was the half a year of having a phone that barely functioned at all. Maybe it was the need to fill that invisible hole in my chest that’s always plagued me.

In any event, one second, I was giving Terrance full-credit for his quick write. In the next, I was watching my phone float out of my hand as it resolved into a firm grasp of the empty air left behind. I didn’t think before leaping from my seat. It was only as I began to round the corner to the exit, five or so meters from my seat, did my thoughts return to the bag I had left behind, full of student notebooks and a Mac Book Pro that was even more expensive than my phone.

A moment of hesitation resolved into continued action: “Worry about it later. Get the phone.”

Sure enough, as I rounded the corner to the train doors, which were no more than five meters from my seat, I saw him. A fresh face, almost smiling, looking at me from the ground. He was lying down and the phone was there in front of him with the screen facing down. I walked over and picked it up. Looking at his face, I spoke, “Fucking idiot.”

I turned with ire, disgust and more than a little confusion back into the train and to my seat. A woman leaned in to the exit farther down the train to ask if they had tried to rob me. I confirmed to some capacity and the woman sitting in front of me asked if I was going to get off to report them. By then the train was preparing to leave, and I made an excuse of the laptop in the bag I had left waiting for me on the train to walk away.

I knew I couldn’t report them. His face was my own after a car chase. It was the face I made after hopping fences and scrambling away from police. It was my face after feeling alive in a sea of dead wishes. They were simply discovering the thrill of epinephrine and flight with its absence of the scars and bruises of the fight. I almost laughed.

Young, dumb kids.

But, how will it play for them next time? What lessons had they learned? I can only hope they learned the right ones. I didn’t give myself time to teach them.

Whelp, it seems it’s about time to start writing again. Right.

I’ve avoided writing for what feels like years now, but in reality been close to nine months. It was October of last year when I received an official rejection from Northwestern’s MFA program. I had applied for some strange hybrid of poetry and fiction prose with the intention pursue a career as an author of children’s books.

I use the word “intention” loosely here since I can hardly say I really ever took the process seriously. I paid the admissions fee and put together the required materials, but I knew I wasn’t going to be admitted to a program an ivy league school. Not without so much as a viral social media post or publication in a small collegiate magazine to show my work had merit. I had just wanted to say “I tried.”

After all, no one wants to lie in their deathbed looking desperately to the past for some trophy they didn’t win or some lips they never kissed. I know I don’t. The idea of a deathbed is what drives me forward. It’s what moves me. It moved me to Chicago. It moved my legs 140.2 miles across Santa Rosa through water and sun to complete two Ironman triathlons. It moved me to drop everything and spend my father’s last year as his caretaker, desperately trying to forge as many positive memories as I could. Regret.

Regret has always moved me.

Is it regret or fear that makes a person sweat in the cold of a dark night? For me the words are synonymous. I fear I might regret. I regret succumbing to my fear. For some reason, I often find myself trapped by the whims of my anxiety.

Recently, I’ve been joking about wanting to get a tattoo. It’s half a joke and half serious. I want to get the word “Regrets” tattooed on my leg. The joke part is that I want to use the Wingdings font, so that it looks like the following symbols: [sun] [finger pointing left] [finger pointing up][sun][finger pointing left][snowflake][water droplet].

I like it because I think it’d be funny to get a tattoo that is incredibly stupid since tattoos are permanent. When people ask if I think I would regret getting a tattoo of a joke, I respond, “I can always add ‘No’ in front so it says ‘No Regrets’ instead.”

I have also always wanted to get a tattoo of a dumb joke on me. I think it’s because I spent the better part of my youth obsessed with cartoons and sitcoms. I loved jokes. I loved committing to jokes. Commitment always made things funnier.

But I think the real reason I can’t get this idea out of my head is because “regrets” live with me. I don’t just mean in the form of fear or anxiety. I mean I have done things in my life that I can never take back. Things I can never change or make better. I will carry these things with me all of my life, whether I commemorate them in ink or not.

So, I like the idea of having them with me as a little joke. Something stupid I can’t really get rid of on my leg. Something that most other people will never know is there. Something that, even if others see it, is meaningless without explanation. Something I can explain away as meaningless to strangers, as a joke to acquaintances, as a meaningful joke to friends, and as a living reminder of something deeply painful to strangers on the Internet.

It’s funny.