Self-esteem is not for losers.

I've been a graphic designer for nearly thirty years now. And while this work can be extremely satisfying, it's an arena where my personal decisions about font size, color and design are critiqued incessantly and the absence of feedback can be interpreted as a gleaming endorsement. Not a lot of rosy talk in this business.

The thing is, having grown up a portly, buck-toothed child of the Seventies, creative pursuits wouldn't seem to be a smart career choice given the fact that self-confidence didn't exactly ooze from my pores. In fact, I can remember giving myself two options for this second-grade head shot: either apply a thick coat of pancake makeup to mute the blinding shimmer of my elephantine incisors or stretch my top lip down over them and risk future profound nasolabial integrity. I apparently chose the latter:

So, yeah, the foundations of my self-esteem weren't quite anchored in the sturdiest of compost. 

Why then, after finally finding peace with the give and take of the creative process, would I pursue yet another endeavor prone to minimal success rates and chronic disappointment? Why in the name of Bonnie Tyler would I hazard a total eclipse of the heart by taking up middle grade novel writing?

F#ck if I know. 

They say it's about the journey anyway, yes? Writing should be enjoyable whether I reach my destination of a published novel, or not. The process is fun for sure, but after receiving my ninth full manuscript rejection this morning, I've circled back to the simple, four-word answer in the previous paragraph to explain why I'm subjecting myself to this nonsense.

My emotions and self-talk upon receiving rejections have become comfortably predictable: I'm not good enough. I'm not talented enough. I don't work hard enough. The subject matter and plot arc aren't compelling enough. Then comes the name calling: I'm a hack, a failure, a waster of the most important of human assets—time.

This pity party for one lasted a good half an hour this morning, until I berated myself with another colorful moniker and forced my brain to break free of this familiar, toxic cycle. Googling the simple phrase, how to improve self-esteem, I landed on a post written by a guy in Sweden named Henrik Edberg on his Positivity Blog, entitled, "How to improve your self-esteem: 12 powerful tips". I know there's no God in Google, but, hell, almost.

This guy Henrik doesn't know how much he helped a dude half a world away. Following are a few of his tips for taking your inner self-worth demons by the short hairs and tossing them to the wind like a freeway Marlboro butt. He lists twelve, but I'm only including my favorites.

Say stop to your inner critic. Literally, you should say the word "stop" to yourself and think of something else, like how many more days until the next season of A Handmaid's Tale.

Take a two-minute self-appreciation break. Hard not to think of Stuart Smalley from SNL here ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."), but listing a few of your best qualities does fend off those beasts of doubt.

Do the right thing. It can be something small, like going to the gym or not judging people. I'll start with the gym; the other one is a bit unreasonable.

Handle mistakes and failures in a more positive way. Wait, what? I'd always thought that duct taping two Olde English 40s to my wrists and draining them before allowing myself the use of my hands seemed like a sensible option.

Be kinder towards other people. That's cool. Just depends on which people.

Stop falling into the comparison trap. As Stuart Smalley once said, "You're should-ing all over yourself." Seriously, with the prevalence of idyllic lifestyles and personal branding in today's social media, comparing myself to that dude from junior with a jet ski and sweet place on Lake Tapps is just plain unhealthy. I'll never be him or own his ferret pelt collection, so why try.

Spend more time with supportive people (and less time with destructive people). Got it. No more hanging out with my kids. JK. 

As I said earlier, there's a lot more to Mr. Edberg's advice, so I would definitely recommend his blog if you struggle like I do with self-esteem issues. And while those are some great tips, what's even nicer is having a place to talk about this stuff, so thanks.

A Message to Twenty White Guys.

I'm back. Apparently, in July of 2017, after I'd posted an essay about depression, I made the unconscious decision to peace-out for a year and a half. Go figure.

I suppose I could make excuses for not writing in so long, and so I will:

1) I'd run out of stories. The daughters are grown up. No more,"Oops, my butt crack was showing while hanging the Christmas lights in front of the kids" moments.

2) Podcasts and Netflix have made me into their bitch and I'm on their schedule.

3) Having Trump and all his peripheral punks in power has been a nightmare and I didn't possess the gumption to comment on him. After all, he's hard to even think about. One thing I've learned from researching true crime during this 18-month hiatus, is that most psychopaths are either highly intelligent or thicker than a mud pie blizzard. Small hands down, Donald's the latter.

And even when Bush was president, I knew that those he surrounded himself with, while evil, were at least intelligent and capable of keeping the federal government functioning at a C-/D+ level. At least the wars we fought were for corporate greed and neo-colonialism, not naming rights.

To me, it's just so sad that people like this guy, because painfully, a lot of those people are guys my age and my ethnicity. Okay, let's face it, I know a lot of these guys. Some I grew up with, a lot I went to high school and college with. Others are relatives, old teachers, childhood neighbors.

A couple of years ago, I swore off writing about politics on Facebook. My last post was pretty inflammatory; I suggested that those who support Trump should just stop and think of their children. Naturally, people weighed in, but then it just kept going, and going, and soon, a woman from my work was arguing with a guy from my high school. The whole stream didn't trickle away until three weeks later, and at that point I resolved to only post to stuff like #throwbackthursday or #chillymoobsmonday.

But even now, the political modus operandi thrives on the FB. Today as I scroll down the first ten posts of my newsfeed, five are personal photos, two are liberal bromides, one is a relatable statement about getting old, one's a conservative meme with Trump dropping some knowledge on Obama, and number ten is an anti-vax message. Wow, that's a Facebook diet of forty percent provocaburgers with cheese.

I decided to delve a little further into the habits of my neighbors in the quasi-anonymous village of Zuckerburgh. I wanted to learn who pipes up most, and about what. You probably won't be surprised to learn that the outspeakers make up a fairly small group.

First some numbers. Out of my 425 Facebook friends:

1) 260 are women, 165 are men.

2) 155 are people with whom I attended high school or earlier. 25 I met in college and 112 are folks I came to know in the employment world.

3) Over the past week, I tabulated which friends posted images or statements that were political in nature. Six women imparted lefty wisdom while six women spouted things extolling President Hairhat. That's a wash, but here's where the scales tipped—20 different men posted conservative or right-leaning messages, compared to only five guys from the liberal side.

Wow, that's four angry, conservative, white males for every angry, liberal male in my Facebook friendiverse. That's a little scary, and pretty darn ironic since they're currently enjoying an unprecedented spike in male empowerment during this administration.

Even so, here's a sample of what my Euro-American brethren put up on the old town bulletin board over this past week:

She's obviously the most powerful politician in the history of America. Looking forward to the next six weeks!

True. Congressional hearings are such a distraction. I'm still pissed that I couldn't watch All My Children because of all that Watergate bullshit.

And let's not diminish the racist angle that my dudes seem to enthusiastically promote:

Awesome, guys. So well executed in terms of slurs per pixel.

I also never realized that the scientific method can be tainted by leftist doctrine:

I remember when my kids were born, we made sure there weren't any climate scientists in the room to tell us our babies' genders. Dudes are worthless.

There were so many more of these from the past four or five days; the folder I started contains 32. 32! And that doesn't include the vast number of likes that these 20 white guys sprinkled on other postings for which they felt a spirit of simpatico. 

Here's the thing: this is a group of men I like, a lot. I really do. I love the common threads we have, especially as I sit here staring down my 57th birthday. Our technological sensibilities tend to match; we're not Snapchatters or Tweeters, we grew up with rotary phones, drank out of the garden hose...

I'll skip the rest, just look up the meme. I guess my message to these twenty American men is this: First, don't be racist. You might think it's funny, but it isn't. Second, you'll never convert anyone, not a soul, so why try? And third, post more pictures of yourself, your families, funny stories from days of yore. 

Oh, and fourth, for God's sake, no one is coming to take your goddamned guns.