Life. For Hasbro it’s a game, for others it’s a cabaret—ol’ chum. For me, it’s a place. A place to hang my hat. Oh, that’s a home? No, I don’t think so. My home echoes, and there’s nothing there to hang a hat on; it's empty—and no, that’s not my head, although I occasionally do hang my hat there too.
This week some lucky Monopoly bidder took possession of my blue property, ending the Rob era as homeowner-- Go ahead, play the little Kodak commercial Paul Anka soundtrack. Watch the Rob moments collage roll past as I sniff a little. I hate to see the house go. I guess that's the funny thing: it's not the house that's going; it's me.
Yeah, that’s funny.
That’s life.
Life is funny. Like the time I went to pick up Debbie Doe-eyes for a first date and she brought her older sister. It took me a little while to see the humor in that one too, but now it is a great conversational opener
“You’ll never believe what happened to me once…”
I don’t think the house story will ever make the conversational list. Luckily I’ve rolled bolts of other material. Material I've spent my life quilting together, while life’s machine stitches my fingers into cool patterns.
“This stitch is called ‘stitch in a ditch: Rob living in a trailer down by the river.’ There’s a funny story behind it…”
There’s a funny story behind everything, and while looking for the humor behind eviction I received grad school rejection letters from Iowa, Michigan and UC Irvine. Now I’m looking for the humor behind rejection too. That comes easier. The Debbie Doe-eyes story sets precedent.
Everybody say “awww…”
I’m sorry. You’re just not as good at the Rob pity as I am. Maybe it’s the practice. Maybe you just don’t have the vested pity-interest that I do; the pity doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to me. Here, try this: after every paragraph say “aww Rob,” really loud and hug the air where I would be, if you associated with me.
Yeah, that’s a good start. Ready? Here goes for real.
So, this pity tragedy I’m writing is life. My life is looking like that new Liam Neeson movie--the one where Liam thinks that somebody has stolen his identity so he throws a Charlie Sheen tantrum until people take notice. No, I’m not stark raving Sheen--my identity wasn't really stolen, it was just misplaced while self-detoxing. You get the point.
If the point seems less obvious and more convoluted than a pile of jackstraws, try this memory game: little Robby was once a kid, and like every other kid, he was lost. Oh, I played games such as Monopoly, Life, and Naughty Barbie; I knew thing about hot stoves, electrical sockets and never to mix the two in the same tub; I even knew all the things I liked, but what I didn't know was what I wanted to be or even not to be.
That moves my pity tragedy to the Hamlet realm, except I always knew that I didn’t want to rule Denmark. I hate the smell of dead fish. I knew that even when I was 8. I remember, something else from when I was 8. I remember writing about wanting to be an Indy-car driver. Before I had finished 365 laps though, I’d crashed into three trashcans, one mailbox and bent my bike-frame against a pickup truck. My 9-year-old career journal reflected on whether my 8-year-old brain had misread its lifelong destiny.
In my twenties, I wrote about wanting to DJ, because I loved music. Later I scratched that. I learned that DJing was more ego than music. Music was for musicians, and I couldn’t play an instrument better than I could play Life or drive an Indy-car.
It was through this trial and error process that a pattern began to appear. All the vocations displayed in my inner monitor, were all later boxed and hauled away, leaving only one constant: I had written about them all. Therefore, I must be a writer.
It made sense. A fireman rushes into buildings, saving lives. I rushed into sentences, sharing insight.
See Spot run. Run Spot run!
A lawyer works to set legal precedence, creating his unique place in the world. I worked to avoid plagiarism, creating my unique place in the world.
See Tops run! Run Tops run!
Like every other career choice, mine had goals: get published, get read, get paid--not necessarily in that order.
See Rob write--
And therein lay the disconnect: nobody saw Rob write. If a Rob writes in the words and nobody reads, does the Rob make a sound? I knew that War and Peace wasn’t built in a day, so I've tried supplementing my income, applying for peripheral jobs. Communications, media, marketing, even government gigs: all fields needing my skills.
All fields ignoring my talents.
See Rob’s resume! Print Rob print!
That was when I reconsidered school. Maybe my writing needed a push. Maybe I needed somebody outside my body to help me understand what the world outside my head wanted see me write. I submitted applications to the biggest and the best schools in the land. I mean, if I am a writer, they should see my marquee talent glowing 20 feet high dazzling with structural highlights and verbiage effects, right?
They didn’t see a thing. I am Liam Neeson auditioning for a John Belushi role.
“I’m a zit! Get it?”
My three biggest hopes wrote letters expressing their regrets, while reminding me that only the top 2 percent could earn the privilege learning in their institutions and indelibly highlighting that I didn't meet their mark.
How deep in the slush pile was I buried? I don’t know, but I can tell you that I couldn’t breathe. Rejection is tough to take, even at those odds. I mean, if I'm a writer, I should overcome avalanching odds, right?
That's how all the good stories end: Liam Neeson comes off the bench, scoring the final touchdown while the crowd chants “Ru-dy! Ru-dy!’ That should be me. That chant should be “Robby! Robby!” Sure, none of these schools are Notre Dame, but they are literary universities. Their literary is based on the same literal 26-letter alphabet that I use. It still uses the same language. The only difference is how many words they string together.
And, lo! There, yonder, we watched Tops prance through the bursting tipped wheat anthesis of our youth! Prance Tops prance! Later that day, Tops' thrashed in threshed detritus and the Tops we knew, the Tops of the glistening coat and unflappable grin gave way to rigored flesh and clumping fur.
Now I don’t know. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m not a writer. I mean I’ve latched onto this concept with terrier determination, but I’ve read the books: the line between delusion and determination is hair-brained thin. I have Scottish roots. I come from a people who’d chop off their right arm to win a bet that they have only five fingers. I don’t know if I’m qualified to tell the difference between dedication and delusion. There is at least enough evidence on the delusion side for me to count on all five of my fingers.
So where does that leave my identity? It’s left sitting with a group of pseudo-intellectuals playing the game of Life, waiting for a turn. Nobody wins because nobody moves. Instead, they sit arguing about why two blues or pinks can’t occupy the front car seat, or how playing Life doesn’t matter because life is all in our head anyway.
My identity isn’t a pseudo-intellectual. According to my GRE It’s not even a half-wit. I’m just a Rob Blogger taking up cyberspace.
According to the GRE.
According to my mortgage company.
According to three out of five grad schools.
These are all people who should know, right?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe they’re the pseudo-intellectuals deciding how the game is supposed to be played.
See, when I was a kid, yes I played Monopoly, Life, and Naughty Barbie. I played a lot of games. They all had different rules, but they also had one thing in common: you could never tell the outcome of the game until the last piece was played. If you were playing Monopoly, the person who endured till the game’s ending move decided the winner. That usually happened when the other players got bored and walked away around lap 365 or so. The Parker Brothers supplied so few of our rules; we made up because we knew the game better than its creators. We played the game
At the other extreme, the game of Life endured at least three major rulebook changes. Once upon a time there were stocks, and insurance. In the later years we randomly picked careers from a pile, because it was more like real life.
Even more like real life would be a bunch of Old Man Monopoly Moneybags shrugging over inside out pockets, losing turn after turn. Right now so many of us are out of work and out of sorts and we can’t find where we belong. Our game isn’t over though. There’s still time to play. Maybe I am as delusional as Liam Neeson, but I believe these schools, these mortgage brokers, these employers, all know what they’re looking for. Right now that isn’t me, but God gave me a purpose, and he controls the game. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen my words reach people, seen readers identify with my flailing identity, saying, “That’s me!” I’ve seen people remember ways my life has touched theirs, even if—especially if—I’ve forgotten the event ever occured.
The point is, we all have a purpose, a way, a path. Sometimes it’s not as obvious as one multi-colored path stretching across a game board. Sometimes we lose a turn and slide back to “go,” but if we believe in a good and righteous God, we’ll always win. Not in the way that Hasbro, the University of Iowa, or even employer XYZ rate progress or ability, but in the way that matters: in the way we touch other players trying to make their way across the board, playing their Life or living their cabaret right along with us.
So for now, I’m waiting on my next roll. Pass the dice to Liam; it’s his turn. I know who I am, and right now I am right where I’m supposed to be.
