Out of Focus

Procrastinators Unite ... Tomorrow! (He said last Thursday)

[Special note: By "this morning" in the next paragraph, I obviously mean, "last week," i.e., when I began writing this post; as opposed to when I continued rewriting and editing it; as opposed to when I finally clicked "Publish"! Onward …]

Walking home this morning (now known as "a week ago, 10/12/22"), after dropping off my kids at school, I felt my phone vibrate: It was an alert announcing the list 2022 MacArthur Fellows, colloquially and informally known as "genius grant" recipients. That notification provided the catalyst for me to finish this post. [Ed note: Which …. didn't exactly happen, eh? OK … enough with the interruptions.]

So at this point, "catalyst" might overstate things. More importantly, I don't mean to imply that any of what follows breaks new ground, nor do I foresee myself receiving a surprise call with news of my own MacArthur Fellowship. Rather, it made me think of a (not-so-clever) joke I had included in the first draft of my birthday post, before I removed it in order to include it within its first spin-off essay. But it didn't survive that either.

Even now, as I begin a third post containing content that I initially wrote for the first, who knows where I'll end up?

Right. It should be me, and yet, I often find myself to be my own unreliable narrator.

Last week, I had committed not just to myself but also to two different "accountability groups" that I would post something! Post something again, that is. At least once, so as to have three entries in a row over three weeks. Baby steps, right? "Don't try to post every day," at least not until I can post every week, right? Completing those small steps (maybe call them S.M.A.R.T. goals) rather than over-planning ALL THE THINGS (which tends to end in disappointment) could transform my momentum from its relative state of inertia to one of progress.

But …. oh no. Best laid plans and all that … again … meaning that maybe I need to accept that such repetitive reality fulfills the the fabled definition of "insanity"! Though I nearly crossed the finish line last Thursday, I ran out of time, had to go pick-up my kids from school, and for any number of reasons excuses, didn't return to this post until today (which, yes, is actually "today", Tuesday 10/18, so help me!).

The fact that none of the above directly qualifies as a lede—nor arguably a nut graf—encapsulates what ultimately became the point of this post, simultaneously pushing its original topic—also originally part of that now nearly three-week-old "birthday post"—to "next time."

Sitting at my keyboard last Thursday, browsing the latest group of 25 "geniuses," I began what is no longer this post discussing the creative project I mentioned in my previous entry that involved searching through issues of the UCLA Daily Bruin from the early 1990s. Originally, I explained that "Why?" with this answer: "My perfect predilection for procrastination," which unsurprisingly resulted in the appearance of my not-so-superpower, who proceeded to ignore all attempts to stick the original point!

My alliteration offers just enough of a wink towards self-deprecating humor that acts as my porous shield from shame; too often, many of us prefer to make a joke at our own expense before someone else can do so for us. I certainly have perfected this practice over the last several decades: planning so much, doing far less, proclaiming, "I'll do that next," or, "Maybe tomorrow."

If only MacArthur awarded a Genius Grant for procrastination I'm confident the MacArthur Foundation would have offered me a one-time exception to become the sole two-time Fellow.

There it is! See? Not so funny. But damn, I was determined to squeeze it in! And when I become determined to do something, I have a really hard time letting it go … even if I never get to it.

I should restate that: Especially if I never get to it.

Self-deprecation—or maybe a better word is denigration?—is so powerful, especially when it delays making the "joke" irrelevant. For a long time, I reveled in other humor celebrating such inactivity. For instance, my ability to recite a quote from a movie may not seem surprising. So what's the big deal if I revel in what has been an all-time fave ever since I first saw Tremors upon its 1990 release: "We plan ahead, that way, we don't do anything right now."

Except, I actually have a very poor memory when it comes to lines from movies, even ones I love. Some people will look will stare at me with shock when I don't realize that the line they just referenced is from Ghostbusters or GoodFellas or The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller's Day Off or … well, you get the idea. I won't remember some not obscure but less-than the best known line from an all-time favorite like The Apartment, but you give me something that resonates so deeply from a 30-year-old super-fun B-movie I haven't watched in at least two decades, and you bet that sticks! Probably, in fact, because I never realized how much it connected with me until far more recently.

(FWIW: This line of thinking will eventually sync up nicely with the post I began writing and now intend to finish … soon?)

It was just over a year ago that I gave a spot in this home of infrequent, semi-deliberate thoughts to all the "unfinished" ones. Oh yeah, I still hold on to many of them, even as I recognize that it makes more sense to leave them behind. But what of the Goldilocks idea? The single weak spot in the Great Wall of Aaron that holds back my ability to keep flowing; keep growing; keep accelerating. Periodically, I think I have my fingers on it. I think I found the Jenga piece that will topple the structure and help me lose the game I've played against myself for so long.

About five years ago, I took one such symbolic action: Beginning by destroying; cleansing through fire; you know: The usual exorcism rituals. That t-shirt at the top, that also provides the headline for this post? I had one of those. I loved it. I wore it. Sometimes, even in public.

Naturally, I had to destroy it!

So one day, I had a bright idea: "I'll burn it!"

Set it on fire. Send it to the ash-heap of my history. Prove to myself that I no longer thought calling attention to a frequent personal dilemma in this way was funny, particularly when my own actions had so regularly proven otherwise.

So, a few weeks later (natch!), I finally did it. I went out on our terrace so as to avoid potentially burning down our apartment. And that may have been a good idea if the surrounding buildings didn't make our small outdoor space a near-perfect venue for testing aircraft wind-resistance. No matter: I was just burning a t-shirt. What could go wrong?

Thankfully, nothing did, but that turned out to be more luck than it should have been as some of the cotton embers flew away … contributing to some particularly bad camera work!

Don't worry: I make no grand proclamations now that my tenure as a Procrastination Genius (unofficial or not) have concluded. But maybe—just maybe—finishing this post and sending it into the universe will give me just enough of a nudge to put-off putting more things off, if only for a little while!

The 2022 (Belated) Birthday Post—The Day After ...

"i feel nostalgia for things i'd never known."

— I Keep a Diary    

It couldn't have been more than a few years ago, during the early-to-mid-Aughts-heyday of the independent blogger, I brought this little site to life. I did so out of boredom during my time occupying an undeniably cushy but wholly uninteresting job.

I have the urge to call it my "day job," but that would imply I had some other major activity occupying my time. I suppose I did once I began posting because I spent an inordinant amount of time dashing off opinionated missives while also reading and watching movies, TV, books, magazines, and, of course, other sites that could feed my snark, critiques, occasionally thoughtful commentary, but frequently other random nonsense.

However, before I faced the vital (2004) conundrum of Typepad vs. Blogger, I spent the majority of most work-days reading other blogs. For quite a while, I wondered if I should start my own, but on something just sub- of a conscious level, I was terrified that that a) My site wouldn't be as good as theirs and b) nobody would actually visit and read.

At that time, my lengthy blogroll included I Keep a Diary,, Brian Battjer's personal site in which he used photos to guide the stories he shared from his life. Of course, in 2004, the world couldn't imagine Instagram or even an iPhone. As of today, though he has updated his site on a schedule not so different as I have mine, his landing page—featuring the above epigram—remains unchanged from what seems like just yesterday, the day that I wrote "Pilot Post: Day Zero" seemingly just yesterday.

OK, sure. Somewhere in America, the anxious teens waiting to learn whether their complete stops, left turns, and lane changes scored high enough to secure that magic card of freedom bestowed by DMVs everywhere had likely just been conceived when that first post went live, but when "just yesterday" actually means the day I have to start answering "51" instead of "50," 16 years can also feel like "just yesterday."

Cliches exist because they're true, and so while time may not literally fly, the older I get, the faster it moves. Sometimes time moves so fast, and I seem to proportionally produce slower. Take this "Birthday post," for example, which I absolutely intended to publish on my birthday, i.e., yesterday.

And yet, here I am on Sept. 22, still writing, editing, finishing … thinking up "clever" ways to address my tardiness.

That epigram from Brian's landing page grabbed me when I first read it 17+ years ago, and frankly, it's never left. I think about it frequently, even if the triggers that bring it to mine have changed over the years. Now, though my own nostalgia may be rooted in events and actions I have known, too often, those moments have become so distant that they seem like someone else's life; or, even with specific clear memories, I feel like I missed out.

Before I began typing the majority of these words yesterday, I started reading Joyce Carol Oates's novel Blonde, and I ran across this line just a few pages in:

For what is time but others’ expectations of us? That game we can refuse to play.

After reassembling some of the pieces of my brain, I thought, "What marvelous synchronicity?"

Oh, you 365 days of yore, wherefore hath thou gone?

Facing 50: Deconstructing and re-editing my three-act structure

I was born in San Francisco 50 years ago tomorrow, and for the last several months when anyone has asked me that most terrible of conversation starters—“How are you?”—I have replied with some variable of the following:

“Hopefully, reaching the end of this 25-year midlife crisis.”

As my few most-recent attempts to resurrect this digital space demonstrate, much of my contemporary focus involves self-reflection. Because my constant curiosity seems to prefer the ever deepening meta-analysis best represented by Russian Nesting Dolls, I have also spent an inordinate amount of time considering the blurry purgatory separating healthy self-examination and narcissistic navel-gazing.

I wish my identifying a “mid-life crisis” was new, but no matter how little I have visited this space over the past decade, it appears that I left evidence of playtime in a similar mental sandbox just nine years ago:

Recently, more than usual, I have felt further away from myself, the things I enjoy, and the Aaron I know I am and have always been. A mid-life crisis. A journey of self-discovery. A bunch of blathering nonsense. Any and all of these. I’m hoping as I focus more on my writing – whether here, elsewhere or a combination of the two – that the answers will become more apparent to me.

“Hoping.” An ongoing story of inaction overshadowed by the busy-ness of any given moment; a trait that ever-present in my fear-center, but not one that resembles the “Aaron” I have always believed myself to be and often proven true to others as well. And yet, as nine years flew by, I too often neglected my aspirational child, allowing that that passive story to take roots and experience compound growth.

I wrote that 2012 birthday post and its excerpted passage less than six weeks after getting married; barely over 18 months before becoming a first-time parent; just four years shy of the three-month window during which I joyfully welcomed a second child before painfully saying goodbye to my dad.

And now, nine years later, on the eve of the conclusion of my first half-century, I ponder how much has changed, all that hasn’t, and where I am in life—personally, professionally, financially, socially, emotionally—as I turn older than either of my grandmothers were when I was born, and frequently, I feel more lost and confused than ever.

Of course, nine years ago, I looked ahead at a path that I have yet to follow in anything more than brief, occasional, irregular spurts.

More recently, I wondered how to edit or rewrite my story if I treat “midlife” literally; if I consider my truth-masked-as-humor answer to “How are you?” as descriptive, precisely where would I insert it within my three-act structure?

The “middle-of-my-life”? 25 years? The entire middle? Or just part of it? Have I reached the end of that second act mesa, preparing to begin the long descent, without brakes, traveling faster with each fleeting second.

OR, I could pursue a more optimistic storyline: Screenwriting gurus charlatans have different names for that central moment in the story where simple turns challenging or difficulties result in breakthroughs. “The Midpoint” is one common name for that crucial pivot point, placed in the middle of that second act, which actually contains the bulk of any story—half of it if not more, rather than just a proportional third.

That makes more sense for life too, right? During our first acts—infancy, childhood, adolescent, young adulthood—we develop and grow, hopefully determining the direction we want each of our stories to go. Then comes the long and most interesting (one hopes) second act, during which we establish ourselves in that story and the larger world, face challenges on the way to proficiency and expertise, develop relationships with others, and as time passes, hopefully determine the transition that leads to a satisfying conclusion in Act three.

For many of us, that might mean that Act 1 ends upon finishing school and beginning a career; Act 2 comprises successes and failures in that career as well as with our social and/or familial relationships, all represented with some major identifiable turning point somewhere in the middle; all leading into Act 3, with, if we’re lucky, some sort of relaxed and/or retired existence until the story ends.

At least, that’s a pretty clean, straightforward, and arguably sanguine possibility.

I guess it’s the one I’d like to model, even though my nature fights against it, because as I turn 50, very little resembles the path I foresaw or the story I believed I was writing when I was 25. I’d much prefer my 25-year midlife crisis conclude at a “midpoint” rather than a third-act transition, and the only feeling of certainty as I move through this moment in time, is that it will be one or the other.

In just over a month, I will mark another “birthday” of sorts: 25 years as a resident of New York City. I have and will always consider myself a San Franciscan, and yet, I will have lived in New York over half my life, and obviously longer than in either San Francisco (17 years) or Los Angeles (8 years). I believe I always saw my cross-country move as the start of my second act, and I know I anticipated a promising future. Still, I probably too often selected the less optimal next page in my “Choose Your Own Adventure” story.

Naturally, whether I push against or forcefully through the thin scrim between useful self-examination and counter-productive self-absorption, I inevitably start thinking about one of my all-time favorite films, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. I haven’t actually watched it in many years, and as this collection of words has coalesced, I have realized it’s about time I revisit it. It feels extra-relevant as I face 50.

Thinking about Synecdoche, New York prompted me to wonder what—aside from love and awe—I thought and felt about it after walking out of the screening room following my staggering first viewing 13 years ago. Luckily (and somewhat surprisingly), I actually wrote about it.

Rereading my open letter to Charlie Kaufman offered its own unanticipated and powerful experience beyond any I could have intended when I quickly (I’d bet) put those thoughts into words and onto this blog. I called it “A Reaction, Not Yet a Review,” and now reflecting upon my past reflection could also count as too self-indulgent—certainly the commenter who suggested that I, “”Get over yourself, and most importantly, get a hold of yourself,” because, “It’s only a movie,” thought so back then.

Considering how often my film-related experiences have induced both “Uh-huh” and “A-HA” moments, scrutinizing how the film spoke to me, the reaction it stimulated, and the self-realizations it proffered at that moment in time—roughly halfway between my move to New York and the present, I must note—seems appropriate, especially since my experience of and reaction to the Kaufman’s film—along with my serendipitous attendance at two other theatrical productions that weekend—feels like a more profound episode in my story than I ever realized.

I guess the barrier between self-reflection and self-indulgence reveals itself only after discovering the results of the process: Positive change thanks to lessons learned seems a better path than continuing (and likely never-ending) curiosity that does little else than uncover the next nesting doll.

I know that I have and continue to somewhat indiscriminately amble down both paths; I always liked rereading those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and selecting different options. I love experiencing/watching/reading/studying different takes on the same story.

But as I face 50, I fear that my incessant curiosity and insatiable thirst for the new and the next are now luxuries because whether one considers 50 the new 40 (or even 30) or simply the age at which one officially becomes part of the AARP demographic, the likelihood is that most of my story is behind me, and if I have yet to find it satisfying enough, I really need to get to work.

Planning on rebooting and now maybe Doing ... Again

TREMORS: "We plan ahead, that way, we don't do anything right now."

I am a “Planner.”

A “Doer?” Sure. For years, decades even, I was a “Doer.” And even when I fell short of “Doing,” I drew from a war chest of great excuses, thereby allowing myself to retain that “Doer” mantle.

And yet, just over a month before I complete my 50th trip around the sun (WTF‽), the documentary of my life muddles that description. All the excuses fall flat as I recognize fewer tomorrows ahead. Suddenly—or maybe not so?— I find myself experiencing a challenging internal reconciliation, one made more difficult due to my ongoing need for a clearer external harmony as well.

I realize that’s vague; enigmatic even, and not necessarily in a fun way. And yet, it provides a decent enough representation of my current thought process, so ... I’m gonna go with it.

Two of my three brothers got married in California this summer, and so in June as well as earlier this month, I traveled west to attend. I went alone due to both COVID and cost.

As I have likely mentioned here before, I grew-up an only child, but I have three (much) younger brothers from my fathers second marriage, which occurred when I was 13. I never lived in the same city as the three of them, much less the same household.

These trips, coming on the heels of the beginning of our return to normalcy mixed with our lunge back into “Woah woah woah, have you met my not-so-distant cousin Delta,” all naturally coinciding with a monumental and unbelievable approaching birthday has been, to quote Marty McFly, “Heavy!”

I often write, “I find myself,” a fascinating phrase that at its core removes all personal agency, doesn’t it? As if I’m just floating along through life, and ... “Oh! Look where I landed!” My consciousness contains an eternal battle between Yin/Yang-like polar opposites, a Battle Royale between the intellectual and emotional , with the latter often saying to the former, “Fuck you! I know you know what I’m doing, and I could not care less. You dominated way too long. My turn!”

And so now, here I am. I started this post three days ago. I’ll return to what took so long, but as I go through it for the last time before clicking “Publish,” this three-times-as-long-as-it-could-have-been process distills the larger them of what follows perfectly. At least ... it does for me. If you’re not in my head, you might need to keep going. (If you are in my head, the rent is long overdue!)

I have struggled for weeks—months even (years arguably)—around what to do with this online space. My desire to write too often remains a hovering threat rather than any activation of that infinitive into, “I write.” That much should be evident simply by scanning the last decade-and-a-half of posts.

I plan so many things: Commentary, if not necessarily criticism, of film, TV, theater, podcasts, and all media; political-oriented responses to all those things that seem obvious to me, but I don’t hear others discuss; personal exploration, i.e., the “diary” that I never intended this site to become but more often than not through my 40s it has represented.

For the past two years, I have planned a total reboot of this site, one to better categorize my work, making it easier to navigate, prettier to look at, living in a corner of the Interwebs that shouldn’t be relegated to (primarily) The Wayback Machine. I even created a “chip-away” project to do so, in which I would spend a limited, bit-size amount of time each day so the task didn’t feel so enormous. I told myself, “This year, for sure.” As we shot past the halfway mark of 2021, I continued telling myself that.

COVID-19 has provided everyone with magnificent and legitimate excuses for how the past 17 months have not proceeded according to plans, but the compassion I have tried to offer myself around this extremely challenging period feels much less earned. Sure, I have two young children, and we live in too-expensive Brooklyn, but my wife remains the sole breadwinner as she has been for the majority of our 11-plus year relationship.

Once upon I time, I executed constantly. Maybe I wouldn’t complete everything to my desired result (read: idealized perfection), but I would complete them, even if that meant a nonstop, frantic rush at the last minute. At least, the things I cared about and wanted to finish, those would reach some sort of conclusion, and I could move on to the next.

Or ... that’s what I always told myself.

I could write tens-of-thousands of words examining this behavior.

I won’t now; I might later.

Do you trust that I will? I mean ... I don’t. I am neither confident, committed, nor sure that I want to; nor certain that I should. What an awful word, “should,” one that I hesitate to use because of its roughly life-long destructive impact on me.

But I want to be back here. I want to return to the original 100,000-foot intent of this site, namely, offering myself an opportunity to get out of my head, by flinging words onto the page; by taking my never-ending ideas and opinions and throwing them into the world, for others to read (or not); maybe even respond (or not). Showing-up in public was always the goal, even when just an unconscious one; creating a confident presence in both the real and virtual worlds and arguing that I have something valuable to say, and hopefully, useful or at worst interesting to someone else.

Sitting down, facing the screen—whether blank or already full of words—becomes harder for me each day. “Why?” has become a persistent question; arguably, too persistent. I am too curious. I care too much about that “Why?” I love and appreciate curiosity, and I feel too many people aren’t curious enough, certainly about the world around them, but maybe even mores about themselves.

And yet, I now connect to the old proverb more than ever. Frankly, as a dog-lover/cat-hater, I never minded Curiosity’s homicidal tendency. Of course, such glibness creates a beautiful barrier against fully considering the metaphor. You see, now I simultaneously recognize how the search to answer “Why?” regularly blocks me from finishing just about anything, if not actually everything. I suppose I’m learning how to become more selective in my curiosity around all those “Why?”s, so that fewer of them will hijack my attention and drive me down tangential pathways, further from any specific, determinate goals.

See, even that intro became a winding path to this post’s original intent: Examining what I’ve left unfinished, and in many cases, not even started, particularly related to this 17-year-old blog that contains fewer than 900 entires. But during this process occupying several hours over the past three days, something else came out.

I think it’s valuable, at least to me. So I’m going to leave it here, and that should make it far easier for me to return tomorrow.

Right‽‽‽

The (still-not-quite) daily check-in: A journey in search of self-compassion

Self-Compassion:
Graphic by Hugo Hinojosa for The Prospector (theprospectordaily.com)

Yesterday was Monday right? I could swear yesterday was Monday.

On Monday, I mentioned launching a “daily check-in” in this space, and yet, I realized that I set no goals; I only offered examples of what I intended to write using two previous, originally more private, let’s call them “accountability reports.”

Was I already giving myself an out?

Since yesterday was not in fact Monday, I recognize that my every day streak stopped at one. Or is it even a streak without at least a single consecutive pair? So, it stopped at zero. It didn’t start. Or it began, but it was aborted. So many different ways to say the same thing.

These days, I exert a great deal of energy and focus attempting to show myself some grace; some compassion.

To clarify, “these days” actually means “since yesterday.” And to clarify further, I mean Thursday-yesterday, and not the Monday-yesterday I mentioned at the start.

Yesterday, during a conversation with my therapist, I expressed—not for the first time—my misanthropic frustration that results from a repetitive pattern: I reach an “A-HA!” or even “Uh-huh” moment (see last post), and yet the semi-conscious action hamster in my skull reacts non-constructively. It looks over at the Headquarters control center, yawns, and then closes its eyes to continue; or, if it’s spent too much time chatting with Anger, it sticks out its tongue, goes on strike, and pickets without moving its wheel.

Of course, I only speak to my own experience, but the most challenging part of any mental and emotional self-care or -improvement—and therefore, the entire psychodynamic therapeutic process—is bridging the gaps between intellectual comprehension and emotional acceptance enabling myself to diminish my blocks and fears, which of course are often—if not always—the same thing.

Even as I recognized its validity, my therapist’s response was not particularly satisfying: Compassion.

Compassion towards myself is the only escape route. Compassion not only for “Present Aaron” and my current realities and challenges, but also for the little boy, adolescent, and young, less-young, and not-so-young men that star in the various chapters of my life.

Definitely far more of an “Uh huh” than the alternative, but still seemingly impossible; how can I show myself compassion when I keep messing-up everything.

Of course, there’s the rub, right? Am I flubbing life? No. (It was rhetorical, but also, still no. Not completely.) But my belief system, and the unholy polyamorous marriage of Fear, Disgust, and Sadness refuse to provide an opening to consciously frame reality otherwise.

I can’t express how much I love Inside Out, and how valuable a movie it can be. But where does compassion fit-in? I suppose it’s an element of Joy, but in this regard, especially as a counterpoint to Disgust, that doesn’t seem strong enough. Of course, that’s the point of the film: Joy is all we have to fight Fear, Disgust, and Anger, and if we can teach her to acknowledge and embrace Sadness rather than fix or ignore her, I suppose that in itself is fulfills the necessities of “compassion.”

Creating my own context, within which I wonder why my life’s journey to date has diverged so much from the path I planned, and answering that question with, “You kept fucking up!” Not only does me no good, but also enhances the damage. Instead, I can’t forget nor dismiss my history, but I must learn from it rather than dwell in it.

AND to some degree, I don’t want to look forward too much either, right? That may be an even larger challenge to me, because I’m a planner. I make and have lots of plans. And they’re good ones too. I can show you one day ... as soon as I start them.

I can’t ignore what’s ahead or live life completely unplanned—especially as a nearly 50-year-old man with two kids under eight—but I also recognize how the constant looking ahead enables my procrastination. It’s also an escape from the present, which in itself seems completely insane since the present is the only period any of us can actually experience. (At least, for now ... in today’s present.)

During my UCLA days, I wrote a one-act play that focused on this debate-as-old-as-my-time: past vs present vs future. I’ve always considered living primarily in one’s now as the optimum way to be, but the past and future are so much more comfortable, no? And they take so much less work.

Writing about not writing: Creating a conclusion to a never-ending Series

I have focus issues.

I suppose the title of this blog indicates as much, but when I first used it (literally 30 years ago for my UCLA Daily Bruin column), I did not yet possess that awareness. I considered “Out of Focus” a simple, slightly self-deprecating title that would simultaneously contextualize my column as one focusing primarily on film and television.

But now? Twenty-nine years after my last column in the Bruin? Over 17 years after this site’s “Pilot Post”? What is this blog?

I recently finished cataloging the previous nearly 900 posts to discover that intentionally or not, the totality of the content within this space lives up to its name: It lacks focus; it lacks a consistent identity; it refuses to present a [shudder] “brand.” And yet, holistically it offers an accurate representation of the hamster wheel inside my skull.

I only received my ADD diagnosis about two years ago, which now—after-the-fact—is utterly shocking to me. (And, if you know me in the real world, likely surprises you as well.)

Once, when I launched this blog, I mostly commented on other things: entertainment news, other blogs, general movieTV mishegas; I didn’t write a ton of “criticism,” though the recipe for most of those supremely critical posts included a featured a bushel of snark, a hefty pour of often-myopic opinion, a pinch of arrogance, and a dollop of contemporaneous zeitgeist.

Over the years, especially as I stopped posting multiple times a day primarily with reactionary “takes”—mostly hot, many not—I lost touch with what I had already published here. Between 2006-2009, I regularly found myself longing to share my thoughts with the webiverse, but again, not with any focus. When Twitter arrived, it (for a time) became a sufficient substitute.

Over the years, whenever the urge became so heavy and loud that I either did resume drafting ideas that may or may not have seen the light of public availability, I created plenty of insane and unnecessary hurdles, mostly in the form of explanations that, I suppose, I needed to provide exposition. The unhelpful Aaron-voice demanded that I must—an evil word, second only (maybe) to should—explain myself (and my absence, natch) before I launched into anything new.

Writers write, but I can’t start writing until I explain why I have not been writing.

I shouldn’t talk about politics unless I offer a reason for anyone to give a shit about my political ideas or analysis.

Though regularly triggered by my obsessive listening to dozens of podcasts, I must not devote time to using my reactions to offer well-considered takes, at least not without first describing my obsession with the medium and how frequently I want to turn my asynchronous conversations with several of my favorite shows/hosts into actual dialogues.

You get the idea.

I never intended for this site to act as a diary or confessional, and yet, so much of the handful of posts from the past five-to-10 years have been focused on personal reflection rather than external commentary. That statement covers all the unposted and incomplete essays currently occupying space on my hard drive, in the cloud, and really at this point, who the hell knows where else.

See, I’m doing it again. I didn’t even mean to, but this is what happens when I let my fingers do the walking all over my keyboard.

I keep embarking on new quests for accountability. Currently, I participate in multiple (specifically, three) accountability groups. One of them is technically on hiatus, but some of us still post to our group forum, and by some of us, I mean mostly me.

Though there is no current active commitment to check-in, I decided that I wanted to keep doing it. And then, I wrote one nearly two weeks ago that as I typed developed into something much more than a simply check-in.

Because that space focuses on accountability, I push myself to communicate as openly, honestly, and transparently as possible, qualities not exactly native to my San Francisco secular Jewish upbringing nor my stereotypical, 1970s latch-key child-of-divorce youth. So as my fingers crawled around the keyboard, and I wrote several hundred words, I asked myself why I so easily could share these thoughts with only 10-12 sort-of-strangers? What am I hiding from? And what can I just maybe set free?

If I’m going to write, dammit ... if I’m going to call myself a writer ... well, I will just throw this shit into the world! Stop controlling and explaining so much, and instead, just create!

So nearly two weeks ago, I began this post.

I finished a draft.

And then?

I suppose I took a “Creative U-Turn,” as coined by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, which I happen to be working through right now. In fact, just this morning I read the section about “Creative U-Turns,” which prompted me to finish and post this collection of words now.

But the initial catalyst for this post was the two accountability group check-ins, one of which includes my description of what I like to call an “Uh-huh moment.” I have shared my idea of an “Uh-huh moment” idea—as opposed to “A-HA!” ones—with many people over the years, so I just assumed I had written about it here as well. However, after searching every single post, I discovered one simple mention without any true definition.

When I first drafted this post, I meant for it to mark the beginning of a new practice: I had decided to check-in here, in this space every day, just as I’d been doing in that smaller forum. And just like that, “every day” didn’t even make it to “tomorrow.”

But it’s a new week, right? And though “every day” will surely become an approximation more than a guarantee, my goal is regularity and consistency, and creating a place with enough active new content that I no longer feel like explaining my return every single day. (It makes sense to me, OK?)

Therefore, without further ado, more than 10 days late but at no cost whatsoever, I give you “A-HA!” vs. “Uh-huh” amid additional self-reflection!

Happy New Year: Once Upon a Time ... Rebooting a Decade With Year 1

Photo by: Markus Winkler on Unsplash

I realize saying “good riddance” to 2020 became cliche around midsummer of that turd of year, but right now, as I sit aiming to accomplish my first SMART goal 2021, I can’t help but hope a decade from now I can see last year as the nadir from which my fifth decade will launch with a more positive trajectory.

Sure, all those Best of Te(e)ns conversations ended a year ago, as did the argument: Is 2020 the final year of the previous decade or the first of the next? It’s that damn digit in the tens column creating such confusion and chaos ... but I digress.

The majority of 2021 will mark my 50th year of mostly successful breathing, and when next September rolls around, so will the beginning of my aforementioned fifth decade. As I reflect on the past year—and the past seven, 10, 20, 25 years and more—I see so many stories, all of them starring me. And yet, I feel as if I’m watching other people’s lives.

Multiple lives? Multiple lifetimes? I’m not sure if I have landed on the distinction, but certainly, in my 20s, I never considered that any part of my experience no longer felt like mine. Yet, as I feel as if I’m accelerating towards that half-century milestone, I find it increasingly difficult to connect to my lifetimes to date; the ones I’ve lived since my birth.

Suddenly, I have the urge to rewatch Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There, a film I have not seen since its initial release, but one which I believe would resonate with me far more now. I imagine the current lens through which I experience the world would receive Haynes’s multiple actors/characters representing a single figure quite differently than I did over a decade ago.

Last year, I wanted to write more. Every year, I want to write more.

Last year, I intended to prioritize doing so, and yet, my first post in this space—the easiest place for me to write both for myself and the greater Interverse—came four weeks into the year. During the course of the year, I started, stopped, resumed, abandoned, and thought about at least a dozen other posts, but the only other one that made it this space for public consumption only arrived in October. IT might have arrived sooner had the life-as-we-knew-it not become a historical era now known as The Before Times, but then again, it’s not like I suddenly became prolific earlier in the year.

Photo by: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

So this year, in 2021, I’m looking to change the narrative. My narrative. My narratives, I suppose. Maybe I can connect them all. Or maybe I can figure out how to make myself feel connected to all the stories, whether they feel like the progress off and/or overlap with each other ... or not.

Once upon a time, I awoke in San Francisco. I remember little, if anything, not implanted via visual or audio artifacts.

Once upon a time, I remember being a not-quite five-year-old who suddenly had two homes rather than one. It wasn’t my fault, of course. My mom explained it to me. My dad explained it to me. I took it well. Boy do I wish I could remember what little me must be covering up.

Once upon a time, I skipped a grade and seven years later felt so young and small during my Freshman year of high school.

Once upon a time, I moved into the dorms at UCLA one week after turning 17 and at least two or three years before I probably was ready to do so.

Once upon a time, 26 years ago today and after a few years of a two-pack-a-day habit in my early 20s, I quit smoking.

Once upon a time, I lived on my own in Los Angeles, working in the film industry, climbing that ladder, but clutching a safety harness that most likely kept getting in my way.

Once upon a time, I accomplished my goal and moved to New York without abandoning my career ambitions or trajectory.

Once upon a time, I made some immature choices, developed my unique form of overly busy and extremely lazy (now well-understood as my too-long undiagnosed ADD), and eventually thought that maybe I had once again determined how to get where I wanted to go.

Once upon a time, 10 years after some fortuitous timing propelled my move to New York, a perfect (metaphorical) storm left me out-of-work, alone and heartbroken due to the unexpected end of my four-year-relationship, and forced to leave not just my rent-stabilized-but-now-unaffordable Upper West Side apartment, but also the entire island of Manhattan; not just moving to Brooklyn, but into a five bedroom share with four other (previously unknown to me) guys in their mid-30s.

Once upon a time, I thought I had hopped back on track, but had I been smarter, I would have known that I had simply hopped onto the wrong train.

Once upon a time, I said “Fuck you 2009!” a year that ended with the (again, metaphorical) punch-in-the-face of a shocking, devastating job loss, followed just a few weeks later by a (literal) punch-in-the-face mugging in a Starbucks!

Once upon a time, at the beginning of 2010, I made one of my best decisions and went on a JDate with my now-wife because my new decade resolution preceded Shonda Rhimes’s best-selling book by nearly six years. Granted, that “yes” occurred around Jan. 7, and the habit didn’t keep.

Once upon a time, after a first long bout of unemployment, I took a job I didn’t really want but absolutely needed to get. It quickly became all-consuming, and I worked harder than I ever had before. But I progressively felt less connected to anything I cared about and enjoyed outside of work. Worse, I was at a loss as to how to get back to myself.

Once upon a time, I had a wonderful wedding, and witnessed the birth of my two amazing children. Suddenly I was a dad; two little kids look at me and see “Daddy.” I remain confused how that works or is even possible.

Once upon a time, months after becoming a dad for the second time, I lost my only dad. Four years later, it continues to feel like yesterday and forever ago simultaneously. More importantly, though, I continue my attempts to understand that reality, my feelings of sadness, guilt, shame, and loss.

Once upon a time, I looked ahead to turning 50, and thought about my two grandmothers, the same age, born just six months apart, both not yet 50 when their grandchild Aaron was born.

Once upon a time, I sat at my computer to write something, unsure what it would be, but hoping the process might help me make sense of these (and other) flashpoints; wishing to reconcile the knowledge that these stories are mine even though I barely recognize the characters, including the protagonist, i.e., me.

2010 started with a happy bang, and as the years progressed, I got lucky in my personal life, creating a new family featuring new milestones every other year. But aside from the three most important people in my world, collectively the last 10 years have been utter shiite, with the past four really stinking-up the joint, and 2020 beating the already decomposing carcass of the previous year’s horse saying, “Hold my beer.”

I’m not a big fan of my 40s, so, rinse and repeat, let’s try again. A new life; the start of another lifetime. Hopefully 10 years from now, I will find this entire ramble quite amusing.

Until then, I just need to keep showing up. Or, actually, start.

Happy New Year.

And, we’re off! 🤞

(Wishing I could wish) Happy birthday Dad: An overdue memorial, first in a series?

Seventy-six years ago today, Stephen Mark Dobbs was born in San Francisco. I write “Stephen Mark Dobbs” because my dad was a fan of using full names. If he mailed something to me, he inevitably addressed the envelope to “Aaron Marc Dobbs.” (Let’s not discuss the weird middle name thing right now, OK?)

My dad turning 76 makes no sense to me. How could it? I still haven’t fully absorbed that ...

In under four months, I will be 48.

OR ... by the time my dad celebrated his 48th birthday, I was 20 and completing (in a manner of speaking) my third year at UCLA, while he and my stepmother had converted me from an only child into the eldest (by far!) of his four sons.

OR ... that my two grandmothers (born just six months apart in 1922) were 49 when I was born.

OR ... my grandfather was only 75 in 1994 when he lost his battle with leukemia. How could my dad be older than his father?

OR ... that I no longer have a living father.

My dad didn’t make it to 74, much less 76, because on Oct. 25, 2016, he lost his own health battle. His never surpassing nor even reaching my grandfather's age does nothing to lessen this confusion.

I often describe my 1996 move to New York as something that took a long time to happen very quickly, and 20 years later, almost to the day, that also depicted my dad’s decline. Today, over 2 1/2 years later, I still struggle with his death, even more than I did when my youngest brother called to say he had died. The iconic opening of “A Tale of Two Cities” described my 2016 perfectly, with the presidential election only landing at number three on my personal tragedy chart. Just four months before my dad died, my wife’s aunt Evelyn--simply the kindest, most selfless and generous person you could ever meet--had lost her battle with cancer and also passed away.

Fortunately, those two heartbreaking events bookended the arrival of my son Elijah (named for Evelyn).

I miss my dad terribly. Or, I miss having a dad terribly. I still vacillate between the two, wondering if they are one and the same or, in fact, quite different. I suppose both are accurate, but on any given day, one feels stronger than the other.

Watching Elijah transform from newborn to infant to toddler to the crazy, wonderful, curious, hysterical almost-three-year-old (consistently ignoring my pleas to stop jumping on the couch) makes me miss my dad even more. My five-year-old daughter Ruby provides as much wonderment and awe as Elijah, but I did not identify with my dad observing her at 2 1/2 as I do now watching this little boy.

When I was 2 1/2, my father was a few months shy of 31. It’s hard to imagine myself at 31 with a baby, so I see myself in Elijah, sometimes even more than picturing a shared experience with my father. And yet, I want to connect with him about those moments, when I was entering into actual personhood, and he couldn’t have known what he was doing, even when he thought he did.

I had a complicated relationship with my dad, which certainly doesn’t make me unique, but the confusion over missing him versus an idea of him certainly extends from this dynamic. Beginning with my teen years and for most of the following three decades, our relationship ebbed and flowed. Sometimes, I wouldn’t speak to him for a few months. I practiced an enormous amount of subconscious (and ultimately self-sabotaging) rebellion against him

And so my struggle most often translates to one of guilt: Do I have the right to miss my father? When I so frequently pushed against him for so long? Who am I to wallow in sadness and loss when I failed to foster a closer adult relationship. If anything, I did the opposite. Hell, 400+ miles to Los Angeles wasn’t far enough, so I moved to the east coast!

And yet, years of therapy have taught me that it’s not that simple. So ... I struggle. And whenever I get frustrated at Elijah, I feel like I’m being hazed for all the times I caused my parents such agita. And whenever I’m holding him trying to get him to fall asleep, I wonder what my dad would think during similar nights with me, as he stared at his perfect little boy, dreaming and hoping for a magnificent life in front of him. I doubt my dad would ever have thought to himself, “I hope I don’t fuck him up!” like I frequently do. Yet, not since at least my pre-teen years do I recall feeling a closer connection to him than I do in those moments, even though he’s no longer here. I shouldn’t be surprised that the inability to discuss it with him feels like such an enormous loss. And still ...

I wrote four other versions of this post before settling on this one, just starting over each time and pulling a little piece here and there from before. Those different drafts, each with its own focus ... maybe I’ll save for tomorrow, next week, next month ... or never. I don’t know. One day at a time and all that, right?

I miss my dad. I miss having a dad. I miss being a kid. I miss my 20s and my 30s and even, in some cases, the first half of my 40s. I feel like this life in 2019 can’t possibly be the same one I remember from San Francisco in the 1970s and ‘80s; or Los Angeles in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s; or moving to a pre-9/11 New York in 1996; or any number of highs and lows in the 23 years since.

I know my struggle with the remnants of our relationship is not my dad’s fault, per se. Our relationship was as it was, and I live with this ongoing seesawing confusion because of and in response to the environment of his own upbringing and development. I try hard to honor and celebrate the good memories, acknowledge the bad ones, and be grateful for all that I learned having Stephen Mark Dobbs as my father for the first 45 years of my life.