Six (or Whatever) Degrees of Me

    A question: how many of you do you have?

   Now before you lock me up for spouting off bad riddles, think about those words...and no, I am not implying schizophrenia by any means...unless it applies to you and then absolutely I am!

   These are the thoughts going through my brain once again and BOY am I FUCKING HAPPY!

    For those who don't quite read me at this moment, well, you fall into 2 categories. One, you stumbled upon this post looking for Alura Jenson porn clips and got completely lost, or you totally understand that I recently got on caffeine again after many months of fearing caffeine was causing my kidney stones. For a long period due to that lack, my ideas were not flowing...now the flow seems to be back on...I just hope not to the point of needing a neurological maxi pad to catch it all!

   All right, I've stalled long enough. How many of you do you have? 

   Personally, I think I have more than 10. And no, I am not implying that a brilliant yet criminal plastic surgeon in Switzerland made duplicates of me like the multitude of wallet sized ugly family shots you are burdened with every Christmas because nobody wants them. 

   No, I mean how many of you have you lived with in your entire life? The you that is in your body, your soul.  

   I think we all know that we as humans evolve over time (to the Christian Fundamentalists who might have stumbled in here looking for Ms Jenson, no I ACCIDENTALLY spewed out the E word, my profound apolo- oh fuck it, MOVE ON!). We all EVOLVE as ourselves over time, and I think in adulthood, at least for me, I have experienced several different versions of myself. In the pre-18 years, I probably experienced a few as well.

   Here's an example. If you have a teenaged or preteen kid who suddenly goes from happy go lucky kid to morosely hiding in their room for several months, only to emerge as a neorevolutionary philosopher telling you your old music and old movies have no place in this brave new world of Tik Tok knowledge, you see exactly what I mean...the caterpillar has made the transformation. 

    The changes don't end there, though. The question for me then is this...are the changes merely biological, psychological, a combo of both, or do I need to go back to iced fucking green tea? I think it is probably a combo, for me psychological most of the time, and purely an EVOLUTION of what I recently experienced.

     Let's go into the many degrees/versions of Bryan over almost 49 years....have something over 50 proof handy just in case! Since there are so many versions, I decided to put it into Apple ios update terminology.

1. Little Kid Bryan: (1.0-1.82818) This guy was pretty nerdy, though generally happy go lucky in nature. Often taken for granted or advantage of BECAUSE of that nature. Liked girls pretty early on, which probably creeped a lot of girls out! This version was updated in mid teen years (not quite sure when) to

2. Teen Angst Bryan (2.0- 2.71940):This was definitely a BUG-INFESTED version! This guy had a really bad habit of taking a liking to a girl and going absolutely overboard without testing the waters first. The resulting emotional fall was quite devastating. There was also a glitch that involved assholish and destructive behavior that turned off people closest to him. Unfortunately, the inner programmer, under heavy budget constraints, took a LONG TIME  to create a "fix". After a while, we finally got treated to...

3. Lost At Sea Bryan (2.2- 2.51953): This version was created under heavy emotional duress and essentially created a fairly empty Bryan for a luckily brief time. This was a period when I lived in San Diego and had no prospects or future of any sort, essentially playing video games and watching TV. Thankfully, this version was temporary as the inner coding department finally got more staff and a contract for paid coffee breaks. It wasn't too long before we hit...

4. College Ready Bryan (3.0-3.32979): This update was long-awaited and well-received. This Bryan was more happy and less emotionally shut down, making some new, if short-lived, friendships in San Diego. This Bryan also came with a mullet-growing app that had mixed reviews. 

5. Early Sonoma State Bryan (3.4-3.53878): A mild update taking me away from the toxic environment of my parents' dying marriage and finally making some more permanent connections in life. This version kept the mullet app and was probably one of the better versions of myself.

6. Mid to Late Sonoma State Bryan (3.5- 3.61669): Sometimes the coding department gets ahead of itself and makes seemingly unneeded modifications, such as parents divorcing. While the new happiness wasn't completely gone, this version carried a bad morosity bug that also had an asshole bug and an unexpected and never-before-seen cruelty bug. Yeah, that divorce really fucked me up inside for a while.

7. Post College Limbo Bryan (4.0-4.41146): This one had a lot of updates and fixes, especially when its premiere had me graduated, unemployed, and sitting around the apartment in Santa Rosa not doing much besides eating crap and watching TV. Luckily a fix was put in that had me working some temp jobs later that fall and an even better fix had me entering the substitute teaching business. That was the money-making aspect. On the personal front, it was quiet for a bit before I did some dating here and there. An even bigger update got me back into school to study to be an actual teacher. That gave me some focus, but these overall 5 years of version 4 point whatever was a particularly devil-may-care era that often came back to bite me for my lack of maturity and caution.

8. New to Vegas/Getting Laid Bryan (5.0- 5.8675309: This long-awaited version was a definite improvement, yet not without its flaws. Bryan was finally on his own for the first time in life. The devil-may-care attitude was eased off and there was a focus on learning how to be a good teacher without stressing out. This had varying degrees of success and failure over time. On the personal side, I was determined to get the ball(s) rolling with the ladies, though my definite lack of successful experience and "polish", so to speak, led to several disasters, although in the sex department I was catching up on wasted time from my 20s. As a result of the rollercoaster personal and professional life, there was a "system crash" a couple years in, a crash that did not recover too quickly.

9. Ready for Love Bryan (6.0-6.321 Contact): This version fixed a lot of previous problems, especially in the area of commitment. I finally found a woman I loved and decided to commit to and marry. Of course, not all was perfect. Having had a lack of positive role models in the marriage department, there were some bumps along the road in terms of learning to be a good husband and get rid of the personality trait known as "bachelor teacher guy", as Vickie called it. On the teacher side, things had improved quite a bit...not perfect, but a smoother sailing for a while.

10. Dad Crash Bryan (6.4-6.45789): An update with a few big flaws. While I embraced the new fatherhood phase of my life, I let my teacher aspect lapse and some fallout came from that, leaving one school and not doing well at the next one either. Another "system crash" resulted here...worse than the first, majorly affecting marriage, fatherhood, and teaching!

11. Darnell Bryan Phase 1 (6.5-6.94533): A new start at a new school was awkward at first, coinciding with a move to a better apartment. This was definitely a recovery phase while a new version was awaiting. Marriage, fatherhood, and teaching were all on the mend. This version lasted just under a year.

12. Darnell Bryan Phase 2 (7.0-7.10446): A LOT of bugs ironed out here as I began a 6-year run as a 2nd grade teacher, my longest stretch in any grade level. I was on a very supportive team and I was getting better integrated in my new digs, making friends with new people, and feeling much better about myself in all aspects of life. 

13. Homeowner Bryan  (7.2- 7.81072): This is the new homeowner phase. A lot of fixes in this one through new challenges and responsibilities...and added marriage stress through it. Two grade level changes added to that along with a kidney stone.

14. Getting in Shape/COVID Bryan (8.0-8.whatever...current phase): Version 8 couldn't have come at a better time. I weighed more than I ever had before and how our team was doing 5th grade was not working well. Two things happened to turn it all around. 1) A Biggest Loser Challenge was taking place at school after New Year and I was determined to make a big change. 2) The new COVID quarantine 2 months later essentially put a halt to a fairly disastrous school year. I was losing weight and feeling much better about myself in terms of appearance and general energy. I was also getting better about being a 5th grade teacher again even though I was practicing in an online fashion. 

   With all those versions, and others to come for sure, I can certainly conclude that my overall self has changed in some ways, yet stayed the same on other planes. 

   The question to ask then is this: can anybody take the time to think back to how many "versions" and "fixes" there have been in their lives? If you can, then you have WAY too much time on your hands!

Broccoli Salad

Renewing the License

    Recently, the state of Nevada made a HUGE miscalculation in terms of common sense....AGAIN! Yep, they decided to renew my teaching license for another 5 1'2 years. Will these bums never learn? 

   Of course, they didn't just GIVE me a new license to recommence inflicting psychological torture in terms of playing old music during morning announcements. No, the state has the foresight to at least charge me $150 for this misguided courtesy. Not only THAT, but there are a series of learning credits that I must achieve in order to have the honor of paying that money. The last time I went through all of this (6 years ago). I took a lot of classes, both online and a couple in-person, to renew...pretty much in the last minute before the license was up. This time around, I took 1 class and the rest of the credits came from in-school trainings.

   Now, let's take a look at this whole scenario. For a TEACHING license, I have to do a bunch of shit to get a new license. For a DRIVER'S license, it is pretty much the same amount of time, though the only thing I have to do is not hit people on the road in all that time....sometimes a bigger pain than those classes!

   Then there are hunting and fishing licenses, which need to be renewed yearly and all you have to do is catch/shoot animals/fish you are allowed to catch/shoot.

  The one thing all of these licenses have in common is money. If you want a license, all you have to do is pay for most of them. In fact, teaching seems to be the hardest to maintain in terms of license. There are requirements for renewal besides money. Imagine, just imagine if one of the oldest institutions in the world that you need a license for, but just once, had to go through a regular renewal process. That's right, I'm talking about the institution of MARRIAGE!

   Can you imagine the divorce rate that would come about if married couples had to meet a certain set of requirements in order to renew the marriage LICENSE? I'm not talking about the vows...those are often treated with such trivial flair that couples renew their vows about as regularly as I renew my other licenses! No, let's just focus on the LICENSURE process.

Husband: Ah shit!

Wife: What is it, dear?

Husband: 'What is it dear'...very funny. I can't believe two years is up already.

Wife: Oh no! You mean...

Husband: Yup, we need to renew the damn marriage license again.

Wife: Oh, the 'damn ' marriage license, is it? Well we can just let it lapse if you like and find other people!

Husband: We might have to anyway. Did we do any of the requirements?

Wife: I don't know, and the inspection is probably coming up, isn't it?

   Pause for clarification. In some states, like Pennsylvania, in order to get your car's registration renewed, you have to get a safety inspection at a PennDOT-approved garage. In other states like California and Nevada, you have to get an emissions test for smog output. This is almost like the teaching license thing. Someone goes over my transcripts and checks out my fingerprints for probably their sexual appeal.

   Now that begs the question: what should the requirements be for renewing a marriage license? Well, screw classes. I've had those up the wazoo. And I think we can agree marriage upkeep classes would end up causing trouble where there originally was none. Your marriage is yours to maintain, not managed by someone doing research for their sociology doctorate. 

   So let's keep it as straight and easy as possible.

Requirement 1: The marriage is a faithful one overall. Sure, he is around other women at work often and she is around other guys at her job (this category can get a bit tricky in the LGBTQI whatever other letters they keep adding, but the idea is the same), but the love and sex is between spouses....YOUR OWN spouse, dumbass!

Requirement 2:  Cooking and Cleaning. Folks, it is the 21st century and we are long past the Cleaver era when June cooked all the meals while Ward likely was busy carrot-waxing in his study...and SHE was likely the 'mopper' after he was through. No, in this day and age men carry a certain responsibility here...I'm not saying they assume a high COMPETENCE, but that's apples and oranges.

Requirement 3: Movie selection: keep it balanced.. Face it, while there are some mutually enjoyed movies for both spouses, there are some he likes and some she likes...and it's not an even split. Yes, he wants to sometimes catch a shoot-em-up classic...that or something with graphic gratuitous nudity and damnit, he does not WANT to see the damn Notebook flick for the 78th time! There are 2 TV's with disc players connected, she can watch it alone if she wants! But he wants to see Dirty Harry for the first time in three years because he finally found it buried under The Notebook, English Patient, Ghost, Titanic, and other weep-monsters that ironically end up being mood killers.

Now that's 3, and I'll keep it there. Of course, there are other areas, like trust and communication, finances, diaper-changing (the KID'S, not your own!) and what not, but those ought to be figured out before the ORIGINAL license is issued. Now back to the spouses at their "inspection"

Inspector: Well, hello. It's that time again isn't it? (evil chuckle)

Husband: Er, yeah. 

Wife: You're creepy.

Inspector: Of course I am. (holds up a paper) Now, let's see what we have here...oh my...15 viewings of The Notebook in 2 years?

Husband: Umm, it's kind of a barter deal.

Inspector: Oh, I see. In this office we call that a classic carrot dangle.

Husband: Yeah, well it gets old WAXING the damn carrot, you know?

Inspector (another chuckle): Of course. As for you, sir...

Wife: Oh good, here we go...

Inspector: Four months of laundry and you've managed to shrink most of your and her shirts in the dryer.

Husband: At least I'm TRYING!

Inspector: Well TRY hitting the delicate setting.

Wife: All right, creepo, do we get renewed or not?

Inspector: Well, it looks like you've remained faithful at least...but then looking at you two I see marriage all over you.

Husband: Huh?

Inspector: I mean you 2 look married, like you've been married forever. Just that vibe, that aura that would drive any potential sexual or romantic interlopers away.

Wife: Bottom line?

Inspector: Share the movies, hit the delicate button, and keep on going, see you in year 17.

   Now, that was an example of success, but we all know there'd be a lot of nonrenewal examples out there. Fifteen years together, we still have our quirks, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Until then, keep the study door closed while in carrot time!