All posts by D.A. Adams

D.A. Adams is the author of the Brotherhood of Dwarves series and the Sam Skeen saga. He received a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of Memphis in 1999 and taught college English for 16 years. He is the father to two amazing sons and resides in East Tennessee.
General Posts

Tuesday Afternoon Ramblings

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No offense intended to my female friends, and you’re more than welcome to read this post and chime in on this discussion, but this post is about being a man.  I’m all for women’s rights and believe we’re all equal, but this post is about what it means to be a man in 2012, at least from my perspective.  Part of this is my attempt to rediscover myself after a rocky ending to a once beautiful relationship; part is my venting over what I feel are blatant disrespects to my manhood; and part is my anger over the castration we face on a daily basis.  Again, I respect women and realize you have your own set of obstacles, but this entry will contain moderate to high levels of testosterone, so consider that fair warning.

First and foremost, being a man in this age is maddening.  We’re expected to temper and control millions of years of evolutionary hard-wiring in order to fit the contemporary mold of civilized behavior.  Well, that’s not easy.  For thousands of years our species has thrived in part because of this wiring, but now, we’re barbarians if we exhibit any signs of temper or anger.  A thousand years ago, hell two hundred years ago, if someone cut a man off in traffic the way they do today, that man could’ve ripped out their fucking throat and left them for he vultures to pick apart.  Genetically, I’m identical to the men of those times, but today, all I can do is give that asshole the finger and lay on my horn.  The frustration of having to bridle back those old impulses is hard to describe.  I hope other men know what I’m talking about and can weigh in on this because I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this frustration.

Also, you know what?  I like meat, especially steak.  It tastes really good.  Do I like factory farming? No.  Do I think all farms should allow free-range grazing and avoid pumping their animals full of hormones? Yes.  But I like to eat meat because it’s delicious.  I also happen to like salad because it tastes good to me, too.  There’s not much better than a fresh salad with basil, olive oil, and vinegar.  My point here is that often I’m made to feel like a Neanderthal for eating meat or a wimp for eating salad, but the simple fact is that it’s my body and my choice.  I’ll eat what I want.  End of discussion.

Then, there’s this whole thing about being sensitive and in touch with our feelings.  I’m here to tell you that I’m about as sensitive, compassionate, and in touch with my emotions as a man can be, and do you know where it’s gotten me?  The best I can tell, only heartbroken.  The women I’ve mistakenly given my heart to haven’t taken good care of it.  They’ve either played on my compassion and drained me dry or criticized me for what I’m not, instead of cherishing me for what I am.  I don’t want to change my kindness or lose that connection to my own emotions, but I know that it will be hard to trust sharing those parts of myself intimately with anyone again because so far, that’s only gotten me hurt.

And what really pisses me off is this whole bullshit notion of romance.  I’m sorry, but cards and flowers and little gifts are a ridiculous waste of money.  I’d rather show my love by helping with the dishes or doing a load of laundry or cooking a nice supper.  I know that’s not very romantic, but you know what?  I work pretty fucking hard and don’t earn a whole lot of money in my profession, so I try to spend my money wisely.  My idea of romance is sitting together on the sofa on Friday night and listening to good music.  That’s about as romantic as I can get.  Anything beyond that feels corny and cheesy to me.  I’m a terrible dancer and don’t like crowds, so going out is more of a drain than anything.  That’s just who I am, and if that’s not good enough, then I guess I’m not the right man for you.

I was raised in a time and place where parents and grandparents used real threats of physical violence to keep their children in line.  My grandfather never actually hit me, but by god, he sure as hell made me believe he would if I crossed the line, so I never dared try him.  My father only had to spank me a handful of times, and each one I deserved and I never misbehaved in that manner again.  Today, if a man raises his voice, he’s got “anger issues.”   Well, despite the do-gooders best intentions, the removal of the threat of violence has left us with where we are: a generation out of control with no respect for authority or other people’s rights.  I’m not advocating for abuse, but corporal punishment, even if just as a threat, does work.

I’ve never once raised a hand to a woman.  Well, not since I was 13 and got in the last fist-fight with my sister.  Even when my ex-wife came to me on Christmas morning to tell me she wanted to leave and I was so angry I wanted to strangle her, I didn’t even threaten to lay a hand on her.  Even when I’ve been pushed beyond my limit of patience and tolerance, I’ve never even considered striking a woman because I am a man, and to me real men don’t physically hurt women.  The one caveat to that is if a woman tries to harm my kids.  Then, I’ll kick her ass as if she were a man, but other than that one exception, there’s no place in this world for a man to even slap a woman.

This post has gone way off the rails from what I had originally intended, but those are some of my thoughts on what it means to be a man today and how complicated and confusing all of it has become.  What do you think?  Am I just completely off my rocker, or do I make some legitimate points?  I want to know your thoughts on this subject.

General Posts

Monday Afternoon Ramblings

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How I envision my retirement party…

I dream of the day when I can comfortably retire from education without needing the income.  That’s the most lurid fantasy I have, and I imagine it almost daily.  As I look at this mountain of grading before me, I envision the day when I’m sitting in HR and filling out the paperwork.  In the wildest version of this fantasy, it happens soon because of a huge royalty check or grotesque advance for movie rights, and I courageously choose to walk away from teaching to throw myself into writing and promoting full-time.  Some days, I can smell the freedom.

In reality, I recognize that I’m stuck at this for a little while longer.  My child support isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and while Seventh Star is doing an excellent job with the series so far, it’s improbable to expect a six figure royalty check any time soon.  Realistically, that’s what I would need to feel safe leaving behind the income and benefits.  Not that I earn six figures now, but by my estimation, a royalty check like that would give me a 2-3 year cushion to live on.  Since that’s unlikely to occur in the next couple of years, I comfort myself with the fantasy.

I hate feeling this way about the job because there was a time when I truly loved teaching, but the system is geared to use us up and burn us out well before our prime.  The course load and student ratio are set too high for composition teachers, so the constant grind of grading is nearly unbearable.  Then, to compound the issue, from All Children Left Behind and the Race to a Stop, the students get less and less capable each semester, which means we have to work harder just to cover the basics.  When we grumble among ourselves, most of us express at least some desire to escape the profession.  Some are hanging on to reach the last level of vesting, others for another opportunity to open up, and some like me for their other career to become self-sustaining.  I know very few teachers today who openly claim to be in it for the long-term.

The sad part is, the ones who are the most burned out are the most capable teachers because it’s doing the job properly that causes the over-exertion.  The crappy teachers who don’t follow due  diligence  with their lectures and grading never feel the burn because they aren’t putting forth the same level of effort.  They just coast along, doing just enough to fly under the radar but not really providing the students with a quality education.  Even last semester, when I was so sick I could barely walk from my office to the classroom, I still delivered dozens of pages of notes and drilled my students on the fundamentals of good writing because I believe in the importance of writing, not just for the individual students, but for our society as a whole.

Despite this level of dedication on my part, I promise that if I received a six figure royalty or advance tomorrow, the college would be running an ad for my position this summer.  I would finish out my contract, but that would be all, and I would only finish it because of the respect I have for my dean and colleagues.  That’s why I’ve purposefully stayed on a year-to-year basis, so that I can walk away on relatively short notice without burning a bridge.  But until the day arrives when I can leave, I’ll have to sate myself with the fantasy.  As for now, it’s time to get back to grading.

General Posts

Late Night Ramblings

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I wrote on here a couple of weeks ago about the neurological issues I’ve been dealing with for the last 8 months or so, and now that I seem to be on the mend, I want to share more details of what I went through.  Back in 1989, I suffered a pretty severe head trauma and have lived with the side effects of post-concussion syndrome ever since.  For the first year, I had a constant headache, and not your run of the mill one either.  To this day, a headache has to pretty severe for me to even notice it.  For about 10 years or so, I would  occasionally lose focus on where I was and what I was doing.  It would sometimes take me a minute or two to come back to full consciousness, but fortunately, that symptom faded with time.  The three that have remained are sensitivity to light, trouble with word recall from time to time, and poor equilibrium.  To me, they are minor nuisances that I’ve grown to accept and live with.

Several years back, I started noticing a random tremor in my left hand.  It was infrequent and rarely lasted for more than a few seconds, so I figured it was just another effect of the injury.  Then, last summer, that hand started giving me lots of issues.  The trembling became nearly constant, and sometimes I would get a severe cramp that would draw my middle fingers together in a painful knot that took several minutes of rubbing to undo.  By mid-September, the trembling had spread to my right hand, though not as severe or constant.

Around this time, I also realized that mundane tasks like walking, especially on stairs, writing, and typing took extreme amounts of concentration.  I could still function, but it took all of my effort to do them.  My muscle strength was fine, but getting my muscles to respond took everything I had.  With each step, I felt like my legs were glued to the floor and didn’t want to lift.  Just holding a pen steady was maddeningly difficult, and while typing, I would constantly miss keys or hit two at once.  I went from being able to easily type 60 words a minute to struggling to complete 30.  Also, I noticed that my handwriting on the board kept getting smaller, especially the longer I wrote.  My arms and legs often felt like they were either very far away from my body or disconnected altogether.  After doing some preliminary research on WebMD and the Mayo Clinic, I was terrified I had either Parkinson’s or MS.

Then, in late September/early October, the muscle spasms started.  They would happen sporadically and without warning at odd places on my body.  Usually, they were in my legs or arms, but a few times, they occurred in my abdomen and once on my upper lip.  They weren’t painful, more just annoying, and they would last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.  I never knew when or where they would hit.

Then, sometime in October, the worst symptom hit.  The only way I can describe it is that I felt like I was dying.  Some days were worse than others, but the sensation never went away.  There were days when just getting out of bed took everything I had, and making it through each day at work required every ounce of energy I could muster.  The feeling was so real and terrifying I actually wrote letters to my sons in case something did happen to me.  I lost count of how many times I broke down crying from the fear.  To further complicate the situation, the doctors had no idea what was going on.  Every single test kept coming back normal, and as I wrote before, my neurologist treated me as if I were imagining the whole thing.  I know I wasn’t imagining that feeling of death.

The whole experience was a nightmare, and I’ve never felt so helpless and alone.  Today, fortunately, I feel like I’m healing.  The death feeling faded within weeks of cutting out gluten, and the muscle spasms have all but ceased.  I still have some trembling in my left hand, and my coordination isn’t 100%, but everyday I feel a little better.  If you are experiencing any unexplained health issues, I urge you to look at gluten as a potential culprit.  The effects of the sensitivity can mimic nearly anything, and it affects everyone in different ways.  The cure is simple, and there’s about a 6 month healing process.  If you are of Scots-Irish heritage, you are highly likely to have the sensitivity, so please, don’t ignore the possibility.