Of Mice and Men

to New Years Eve revelers,

If you don't want to kill your joy, avoid Steinbeck's novella of insight on this last day of the year. Avoid Grapes of Wrath too; that ending was more than a bit weird. I'm all for depressing novels, but they can sometimes be a bit too much at the wrong moments or the wrong moods.

According to Wikipedia (which is still asking people for donations when all it needs to do is add one small little adbar to reap beaucoup revenue), Steinbeck took the name of the novel from a Robert Burns's poem, To a Mouse. Which makes perfect sense, and I've used that tidbit of information to inflate my ever large hubris many a time to the right people. The original line from the poem reads--

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,

Reversioned into coherent English by a Wikipedia author who, supposedly, doesn't get paid--

The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,

But I much prefer my version: The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. 'Schemes' has a bad connotation, and I don't consider myself much of a 'schemer'. 'Oft' sounds kind of sexy in an archaic way. It's a word that most people can define using context clues skills they learned in 5th grade, but still adds a mystique to the conversation. That or they'll start considering you a pretentious ass who uses thesauri or Google to make yourself sound [even] smarter than you are. Either way, it is a win-win.

Though I confess I do use thesaurus.com and Google plenty of times to clean up my diction (poorly, I might add), the bit about 'go oft awry' dates back to 12th grade when I was still confined to rules of proper English in order to vanquish the English Literature AP test. On a tangent, I like blogs because the sheer amount of daily writing involved almost excuses wordiness, my prime offense.

English Lit class involved reading dry, supposedly wry texts from masters whom I wished the editors modernized to something readable. Not dumbed down to Jersey Shore level, but at least to a style you might see in Times magazine. Being in class also meant being a complete failure at trying to impress girls with my use of the English language. Besides the relatively large but slowly shrinking size of my savings account, my command of this mutt-language is the best thing I have going for me. Pretty sad, I must admit.

Anyway, it probably happened like this, the 'go oft awry' bit: We read stuff in class, probably pieces like the Burnsian poem. The teacher in a more optimistic mood asks a bunch of seniors 2 months from graduation, what a particular line means. After being beatdown with glares and sneers through most of my pre-adolescent and pubescent life, I'd learned not to raise my hand as often. But since the guy was in such a pleasant mood, I threw him a bone.

'That's nice, Mr. Nguyen. Though would you really choose to use "oft"? It's a bit archaic, isn't it?'

It's a peeve of mine when teachers address students by their last name. They try to elevate you to their level, yet this oddity (since every other teacher calls you by your first name) reminds you that they hold the superior position in the relationship. It is utterly condescending. Don't pretend I'm not your b--, smiley face.

'Yes, I'd rather stick with my choice of "oft", though I very well know that it is likely an old-form of "often" and though my classmates probably don't know that, I do, and I'm kind of the only person that matters to me.'

Okay, the story went nothing like that. In my lukewarm quest towards complete Advanced Placement domination, I deferred learning the important material by reading pleasurable stuff. Before this potent Netflix addiction, my past vice was reading for hours on end until the wee hours of the morning. And when I got to a particularly savory bit of writing, I'd write it down to pwn for my own use later. So was born the 'go oft awry bit'. Mr. Optimistic assigned us texts to read, and sat down to whatever he wanted to read, and if you wanted to learn, he was there to teach. Those teachers were swell.

Excuse the long, pointless story.
--

Last New Year's Eve, I was stuck in Dallas, down and out with a cold for the nth time. And I did nothing but attempt to console myself with largish quantities of cough syrup (sadly, it wasn't purple). In my drug- and cold-induced stupor, I thought about resolutions I had made. I was going to start setting down, find a nice girl, have her try to change me for the better as girls are wont to do, etc. Probably that summer, I would start looking at condos in the Addison area and join some book club or something. Start to put down true connections and such. My friends would have started their rotations by then in the Dallas area, and I'd have some people to help me meet new people. It was going to be all good and swell.

Then a month before Easter, the 'go oft awry' bit happened, and I was informed I would be 'displaced' which was the HR-approved term they used. Though it put me in a tailspin, I thought I was pretty well qualified to try to do non-retail stuff, like hospital or long-term care.

No dice. I spent the better part of three months depressed that employers refused to acknowledge my existence simply because I didn't have the 'experience' they were looking for. So I gave up going for hospital/clinical jobs.

Shortly after that decision, I landed a job doing the same work with more pay (the rate was pretty sick) and closer to home. The first cut is the deepest, as Sheryl Crow croons. I worked all the extra shifts possible since I felt the job wouldn't last all that long. And sadly, I was right.

So this is where I am today, chillaxing, figuring out my next move, wondering how many hours of Netflix I'll watch tomorrow when I'm hungover from tonight's festivities. I say 6-8 hours, and that's probably an underestimate.
--

Recently, I gave some advice to the newest brothers in my pharmacy fraternity. The first bit when like this:

Firstly, ‘things fall apart.’ Things Fall Apart is a book written by Chinua Achebe about a tribal leader in Africa who resists the change in his community by the white men. But by being so steadfast in his ideals, he eventually becomes frustrated and commits suicide, which is one of the chief sins in his belief system. It is a very sad irony. What does this have to do with...pharmacy? Things will change, for better or for worse. You must learn to cope and deal with all types of circumstances. Things will not always turn out as you expect them to, but if you realize this early on, it will not be as hard to handle when things do not go your way. Bend, but do not break. [end]

I thought about titling this post 'Things Fall Apart', but that's such a dreary opener. And it's not completely encompassing of my life this past year. I'm not dead, and I'm very much the better for my experiences this past year. I've paid off all my debt, and I finally have a virtual tabula rasa, a clean slate. I can do or not do whatever the hell I want. It's like ice cold lemonade sweetened with real sugar on a hot summer day when you're inside with the AC blustering hard to keep it a cool 68 degrees, after you've spent 2 hours mowing and edging the lawn of a house on the corner lot. Utterly magnificent.

Though I won't go so far as to say 'Things Fall in Place', I will say this past year has been more constructive than destructive. The most fitting epitaph for this year is, therefore, 'the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.'

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Never.. 2010, what a wondrous year!