But I liked foxes before that band from Norway

The first time I can remember seeing a fox was when I was spending a summer in London staying with a friend. He lived in a small suburb in the southeastern part of the city. There were three of us—my friend, another friend of ours, and myself—staying in the guest room on the second floor of his house, overlooking the street. We were awoken sometime around 1am or so by a rustling outside. It was my other friend who heard it first and he acted as excited as a small child on Christmas morning. There were three foxes outside running through the streets and going through the neighborhood’s trash and recycling. I was very confused when my friends told me to look at the foxes outside. I couldn’t figure out why there would be foxes in the middle of a city. I thought foxes lived in forests or in the arctic—not cities. But in England, foxes live wherever they please.

The foxes in London aren’t the red foxes you generally think of—they’re a little smaller and grey. They’re England’s equivalent to the raccoons of Ohio, scavenging through the most easily-accessible of trashcans for whatever left-behind scraps for dinner. And like with raccoons and some birds of prey, they roam the city because it was their home long before the likes of Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf. Although London is one of the oldest cities in the world, the modern city we know used to be much smaller with a lot more forests—though even now it is one of the greenest cities in the world. As civilization expanded, the foxes stayed put, adapting to their new urban environment, not giving up or into mankind’s supreme domination. Instead, creating a new way of life.

Foxes are an inspiration.

I remember when I lived in London for three months in 2008, I was out walking one day in, I think, a business district near Euston Station and in the middle of the sidewalk right at the very edge of a walkway to an office building was a fox. A dead fox. It was bloated and probably had a few flies around, though I don’t recall it smelling. Clearly, it had been there for a while. I remember stopping and staring at it briefly before continuing on my walk, wondering why it was still there. Although it wasn’t squished or even at all bloody, I assumed it had been hit by a car and the 20’ from the road to its final resting place was all the further the fox could make it. I couldn’t figure out why it was still there though—why no one either from the city or from the building, the walkway of which was being intruded upon by the fox, had removed it yet. It was as if I was the only one who could see it. Maybe that’s how the fox wanted to go out.

A few weeks ago I saw a fox dead in the middle of the road. For the longest time I never even knew that foxes were native to Ohio until a couple years ago when I had one run out in front of me one evening as my friend and I were driving to a restaurant in a nearby city for dinner. That fox managed to not get hit by either my car or the one coming from the opposite direction. This fox I saw a couple weeks ago, however, was not as lucky.

I really like foxes. I think they’re beautiful creatures—majestic even. They hold great significance to me. When the fox ran into the road and dodged both oncoming cars, that, to me, was a sign that even though absolutely nothing in my world seemed to be right, it would all be okay eventually. So when I saw the dead fox in the middle of the fox a few backs, I wondered if that too were a sign. And if it was, what did it mean? With unemployment and the job hunt still looming, I didn’t like the implications of that sign. However, my mind was put at ease not long after.

As I drove home from my favorite pizza local pizza place, Firehouse Pizza, the other night right at dusk, I noticed two animals playing in someone’s driveway. I saw pointy ears and tails, so I assumed they were cats. But as I drove by, they stopped playing and looked at me—they were foxes. Younger foxes, I assumed, who were enjoying each other’s company by wrestling around as the sun started to fade away. And I smiled, happy to see these creatures enjoying themselves.

How I learned to use my CD burner

I can’t remember the first CD I bought, but I think it was something by Elton John and I think I still own it. These days my CD rack is too small and there are growing piles on all sides. I’ve listened to all of them at least once—some of them just the one time. Generally, I’ll buy a new CD and listen to it over and over and over and it will be a regular listen for several weeks until something new comes along. Every so often I have to remind myself to listen to something old—something I’ve had for a while and haven’t listened to in a long time. Sometimes you have to rediscover artists and particular albums. Sometimes you need to take a break from your favorite band.

With the ubiquity that is the iPhone and the sudden renaissance of vinyl, I think I am in the minority by still listening to CDs. I own an iPod—a 3^rd generation iPod Touch that is something like five years old. It has no camera, no apps, and all 32gigs are filled with a wide variety of songs. I mainly use it when I go to the gym or on long car rides like to Cleveland or Cedar Point. Or sometimes just cruising through the Logan County countryside. Sometimes when you cruise you want a variety of songs, not just one artist. Sometimes you want to hear a shuffled playlist.  I still make playlists. And mixtapes.

Mixtapes are a lost art. When I was a kid, CDs were starting to become less expensive and more widely available. But it was still long before CD burners and MP3s—the former of which is becoming dated even now. If you wanted to make a mixtape you had to pop a cassette into the player and hit record when your favorite song came on the radio. This could take several attempts—maybe you missed the opening chord or maybe something caused the station to cut out halfway through. If you had a stereo with both a CD player and a cassette player you could record the song directly from the CD and get the best sound. Your car didn’t have a CD player, so a mixtape was ideal. My brother always had a good collection of mixtapes we would listen to his car. Some I liked more than others. I didn’t like the ones with heavy metal, which was a lot of them. I think my favorite one was “Songs for Monkey Love Making II”. I couldn’t tell you any of the songs on it, though I think it included Tenacious D’s “Fuck Her Gently”. I remember those mixtapes and the belting out of Jack Black and Kyle Gass’ comical lyrics being a source of bonding. It is where my appreciation for both music and cruising with the windows down find their roots.

Cassette tapes are more or less obsolete now, though I have heard Sony experimenting with the technology for back-up systems. Now you no longer have to hit record on the boombox, but instead click “Download” in iTunes. Or whatever… “other means” you prefer. A mixtape is no longer a tape but instead a CD-R or a playlist on YouTube or your iPhone. A lot of people will say the mixtape doesn’t exist anymore, but still does—just in a different form. And so long as there are people listening to music it will always exist in one form or another. I make mixtapes fairly often—for friends, mainly. I give them to them as gifts. Sometimes I will write an haiku in the “booklet” or a quote that fits the theme of the mixtape: Songs for Baking, Love Jams NOT from the ‘80s, Baby’s First Mixtape. I actually give my friend’s son a mixtape every year for his birthday. That’s kind of how I rediscovered the lost art.

If I, or anyone, give you a mixtape, you should know that it doesn’t mean we think you have a terrible taste in music. Instead, it means that we care about you. That we took the time for find songs that we think you would not just like but be able to make an emotional connection with and associate with us.

How I learned to love the steep incline

The Millennium Force still makes me nervous. I’ve ridden it hundreds of times by now (okay, more like dozens but I’m trying to exaggerate for emphasis here—and to impress you), but I still get a fluttering in my stomach as I stand in line and look up towards its 300’ hill towering over Lake Erie. The fluttering increases as I stand on the platform with the pseudo-rave music echoing through my ears (if you’ve ridden it, you know the music I mean).

Up until a handful of years ago, I hated roller coasters. I had myself convinced I was afraid of heights—I think because once when I was younger my brother said he was so I was too. Oddly, he has always loved roller coasters. The first coaster I ever rode was the Beastie at King’s Island, a kid’s version of The Beast, and I hated it. The first real coaster I rode was the Millennium Force and I hated it. My eyes were closed for the entire minute-and-a-half ride. I think I was forced to ride it two or even three times that day by my then best friend. I know once I was soaking wet, having just ridden the flume ride or white water raft ride and I was terrified I was somehow going to slip right out. I felt bad for whoever had to sit in the wet seats of the car after us.

 

Towards the end of the day, I was finally starting to enjoy the roller coasters and was growing tired of my friend’s prodding of “Quit being a pussy.”

But then the park closed and we had to go home.

Next time. And yes, there was a next time.

My then best friend got me hooked on the physics-bending structures, which I never would have thought possible. Of all of the times my family had tried to get me to ride them when I was younger, I never would, but he was able to get me to do it; he gave me a confidence I didn’t know I had. I passed that confidence onto my now best friend, who also used to not like roller coasters but now loves them. In fact, he was the one who convinced me to ride in the first row of every roller coaster we rode—something my previous best friend had tried to get me to do too, but I never would. Recently I went to Cedar Point with a different friend and it was curious how I didn’t seem to push much to sit in the first row save for on a couple rides.

That night as we drove home, my friend asleep in the passenger seat, I found myself pondering this idea that we have more confidence around certain people than others. But why? Why must we rely upon the presence of someone else for that extra push we need? I don’t have that answer. I don’t think anyone does. I’m sure there are plenty of government grant-paid researchers who have theories. We’re societal beings. We like accompaniment. We thrive upon it. No matter how self-confident or motivated you are, you need someone to rely on, someone for support. 

Without our friends and family to back us up, we are nothing.

Doorstep, Stoplight... it's all semantics

When I was a teenager, much of my family for whatever reason seemed to think that I really, really liked Bob Marley. Even though I only owned one CD, Legend. I bought one t-shirt because I thought it was cool and then my family would give me more for birthdays and at Christmas. My dad even bought me a Bob Marley shirt just a Christmas or two ago; I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t listened to him in at least a year or two. My family also seemed to think I was really into Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, totally ignoring how much I was digging The Who (I even had a tie-dye shirt). 

A few months back I heard “Three Little Birds” on CD 102.5 on one of the few occasions that I actually listen to the radio. CD 102.5 is one of few indie radio stations still around and one of the longest running in the nation. They play a pretty eclectic mix, not having to abide by ClearChannel standards, but it still threw me off to hear the peace-anthem on the radio. You don’t often hear Bob Marley on the radio and if you do, it’s generally “I Shot the Sheriff”. I turned it up because not doing so would have just been disrespectful to somebody.

Just over three weeks ago, I was fired from my job of nearly nine years. I worked for my uncle. It wasn’t a very great job: I worked at a grocery store for $9.25 an hour. There was a lot of physical labor involved and far too much stress—both on the body and mind—for a job that should be so easy. On my resume, I listed myself as the “Assistant Manager”, though I think I was about the only one who considered myself to be that. What it all boiled down to was that he lost his temper and took unrelated stress out on me. Nothing beyond that is important. But I was now left without a job and a lot of bills to pay, including a recent emergency bill room that seems to keep spawning.

I’ve spent the last three years since I graduated college looking for a job, applying for upwards of 200 positions, resulting in just one single interview, which obviously did not result in a job. In the last three weeks I’ve applied for 50 or more jobs and have had three interviews so far, but still no job. I even applied for what I felt was the perfect job: facilities manager for a local theatre run by a non-profit organization. It was only a 30-hour, part-time job, but I figured it couldn’t pay any less than my previous job did in 40 hours. Unfortunately, I did not even get an interview despite having experience with all facets of the job responsibilities. I had even recently put on a benefit show in that theatre, which was a wild success and have since had dozens of incredible ideas that could really help put it on the map and bring it back to its former glory. To be honest, not even getting an interview was a bit devastating. My heart sunk. It almost put a damper on my whole job search, but I knew I had to continue.

Just over a week ago I went to get dinner from my favorite local pizza place in the next town over, Firehouse Pizza. As I approached the sole stoplight in my small town, it turned red. I came to a stop and as I watched the light waiting for it to turn green, I noticed three small birds perched upon the top of the stoplight. And I smiled. As if it was an involuntary reaction, my brain started playing the chorus to Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” on a loop even though I hadn’t heard it in months:

Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘cause every little thing gonna be all right.

I heard it in my head and I believed it. I needed to believe it. Everything will be all right in the end. I know this. I tell myself I know this. I cannot sit and worry and whether or not I am going to get a job or how long my money will last—that will not solve anything.