Brevet

I have lived in 17 different cities in my life – Port Hueneme, Oxnard, Camarillo, Westminster, Huntington Beach, Santa Maria, Ventura, Orcutt, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Pacific Beach (San Diego), Ocean Beach (San Diego), Walnut Creek, Martinez, Pittsburg, and Vallejo.  Irvine had the best amenities, San Diego had the best weather, and Pittsburg had the most crime.

In the first house I can remember, our kitchen table was a wooden picnic table painted bright yellow.  My father read “the Hobbit” to me as my bedtime story until my parents divorced when I was 5.

My first music album was Donny Osmond’s “Disco Train.”  I can still sing most of the words of “C’mon Maryanne.”

For my first communion, my mother dressed me in an orange leisure suit considered stylish in the 70’s.  The picture haunts me to this day.

I had a crush every year of my preadolescent school career.  One per year and totally unbeknownst to the crushee.  Mostly.

In the 2nd grade, I made the mistake of telling my friend Eddie Collins that I liked Heidi Tobler.  Not knowing how he could contain himself with information this good, he ran through the school yard yelling out like a town cryer, “ANDY …. JENSEN … LIKES … HEIDI … TOBLER!!!!”  I ran after him crying out at the top of my own, “I do not!!!!”.  But I really did.

Then in the 3rd grade, I fell hopelessly in love with Tanya Holmquist as did my friend Nicky Castro.  We would go to her swim practices at the community center in the summer afternoons.  While we watched the swimmers, trying to figure out which one was Tanya, we would spar with our Tanya Holmquist triviata to see who knew more about her, and therefore, be more deserving of her affections.  I’m not too proud to say that Nicky’s adoration paled in comparison to my own.

On my first day at Sowers Middle School in Huntington Beach (Orange County), I wore overalls to school at a time when 501’s and Izods were the appropriate uniform and overalls were, unfortunately,  in a fashion “valley” in terms of their popularity at the time.  It took quite a long time before people stopped asking me if I was a farmer.

My first girlfriend was Suzanne Zekula, in the 8th grade.  I couldn’t find the courage to kiss her at her christmas party, even with the liberal application of mistletoe to the decor.  She broke up with me by phone shortly thereafter.

My first car was a Chevy Luv that had been spray painted blue with a rattle-can and smelled of maple syrup when you turned on the heater.

In my first play from scrimmage once I became a “starter” in high school football, I jumped offsides.  I was a minor, but important, cog in a team that won the first league championship in school history. We lost in the first round of the playoffs to Beverly Hills High School, who we did not take very seriously up until the point that they beat us.

The first time I had sex I was stung by stinging nettles (for the first and only time in my life) as we walked back to the car.  I was fairly certain that this was God’s punishment.

The first time I was pulled over by the police for speeding, I had been driving around trying to recharge my battery after I had left the lights on at school.  After he gave me a ticket, he had to give me a “push start” and I popped the clutch to start it back up.

My first “real” girlfriend I met in my first class in my first semester in college:  Michele LeClaire and Pre-Calculus, respectively.  She was driven, Catholic, and a tremendous worrier.  She was also tormented by stomach problems that might or might not have been an ulcer.  We dated for pretty much the whole first two years of college.

My first three weeks on campus at UC Irvine, my Junior year, I went out with several different women (including 2 who were roommates) in my apartment complex (”Campus Village”).  This was a very bad idea.  In my fourth week on campus, by silent agreement between me and the increasingly agitated women of Campus Village, I didn’t ask anyone else out that lived there. 

Almost immediately thereafter, I met my second real girlfriend, Angelica Gamble.  I think she was charmed by my recently acquired “player” label and considered it quite an accomplishment that she was able to keep me locked up for a couple of years.  Little did she know that I didn’t like being single anyway – too much stress.  We dated for most of my Junior and Senior years though we didn’t have much in common beyond mutual attraction.

My first job after college was as a lobbiest for a trade association.  They fired me after 3 months for a lot of good reasons (not the least of which was rectifying the horrible mistake of hiring a 22 year old Social Ecology student to represent banking interests in California), but deep down, I’m still kind of mad about it.

I was out of work for 60 days during which time my diet consisted almost entirely of potatoes.   I cried every morning in the shower so my roommate wouldn’t hear me.

By the time I was adequately desperate, I lied my way into getting a job waiting tables at the main restaurant of the Hyatt Newporter.  It was humbling but I learned a lot about customer service and regained my confidence.  Even more importantly at the time, they fed you after every shift, so I didn’t have to wait for a paycheck to eat again.

After I had been there a few months, I saw that they treated the waiters at the Italian restaurant at the hotel (Ristorante Cantori) better – higher base wage, easier shifts.  You just had to sing these silly “food songs” at various points.  I auditioned and got the gig, and so became a singing waiter for a time.  In the interest of full disclosure, my singing was only adequate, but my service skills were excellent which helped balance the rest of the crew who were generally good singers, but terrible waiters.

My first legal job after college was for a firm called Shapiro & Miles.  We foreclosed on people’s homes during the height of the recession in the early 90’s.  I had quite a bit of success there, but never quite got over having to be the bad guy as part of my job.

My first wife, D’Shea McEntee, I met at that job.  She was the receptionist in our San Diego office and I would flirt with her when I called or travelled to that office.  She had a strong personality that many people found attractive, including me.  I was about 25, and she was 20 and I was inapproriately feeling that it was time to “settle down.”  We got married and stayed that way for about five years.  Once she grew up enough to figure out that we didn’t have much in common, she left and moved to Indiana.  I had already figured out that we didn’t have anything in common and in my hubris, had decided that it didn’t matter.  She was right and I was wrong.  It matters.

My current, as of 2008, job is with a law firm that represents people that are dying from their previous exposure to asbestos.  I get to feel like a good guy this time.

My actual function is much the same as it was at Shapiro & Miles after I was there for awhile – middle management.  The money is ok, and I like having control over things, but it’s ultimately an alienating experience.  There’s not a lot of opportunity to make friends and you kind of have to get use to one or more people not really liking you because of the nature of the job.

My wife, Amy, I met at my first company picnic in 2001.  She was a former employee of the firm and had helped set up many of the systems there – phones, computer network, etc.  I had had lasik surgery on my eyes the day before and so was wearing dark glasses on an overcast day and feeling pretty self-conscious about it.  I also had forgotten to zip up after a potty break and so was not really at my best when she approached me.  For reasons I still don’t understand, she pursued me, successfully.  It was a good call on her part as we ended up having a great deal in common both in the way we think about things, our experiences, and our strengths and weaknesses.  I can’t say enough about how much easier and satisfying a relationship can be when you have the same interests and goals.

We’re trying to have a baby as of 2008, and going to extreme lengths to make it happen.  We shall see.