Proverbs 11:29

Before I moved here--Central Florida--I flew out here to visit my sister in law's high school English classes. I figured it would be a good idea to see what a teacher does, before actually applying for a job. A couple of her more astute students spotted me as an outsider and asked me what I was doing there. I told them, "Well, I'm going to move here and become a teacher." To which they replied, "Why? California's better. Florida sucks."

If I'd known then what I know now, I would have taken their advice and stayed put. Why? California's better. Florida sucks.

Look, I make the best of things, which is all any of us do anyway. I have things the way I want them, so I won't make too much noise about the ways in which Florida sucks. But I will say without hesitation that California is better. Way better. How?

1) Geography. Southern California's "landscape diversity" is unmatched except maybe by New Zealand's. When you can go body surfing, desert biking, and snowboarding on the same day, you are not going to be bored by the lay of the land.

2) Climate. Southern California's climate cannot be beat anywhere in the solar system. Never too hot, never too cold, no rain, no snow except in the mountains. And none of this GOD DAMNED HUMIDITY. People who move to Florida from the Northeast are ignorant. They think the weather is so beautiful here, just because it doesn't snow. They do not know what they are talking about.

3) IQ. People are smarter in Southern California. They have to be, because there's so much more competition for jobs.

4) Jobs. There are JOBS in Southern California. Other than "waitress" and "cook" and "housekeeper" and "geriatric nurse," I mean.

5) Beauty. A Central Florida 10 is a Southern California 7. Yes, really.

6) Entertainment. Los Angeles is no worse than second to New York City for entertainment options. Music, theater, Hollywood, Venice Beach...really, the list is too long. Sure, Orlando has some cool Disney and Universal stuff (the suckiness of the Magic Kingdom notwithstanding), but that grows stale all too quickly.

7) Opportunity. In any field, Southern California's occupational opportunities are unmatched anywhere. If you want to be a dancing fish smoker, you can develop that skill at the Learning Annex at Santa Monica College. They'll even help place you.

8) Gambling. LA to Vegas in five hours; Daytona to Biloxi in...who cares?

I'll stop here. My point is that the kids were right, but here I am anyway. See, when I went back to SoCal for Christmas and New Year's, I was expecting this huge emotional wallop along one of two lines: 1) "Oh my God, what have I done! I miss California! I need to move back here!" or 2) "God in heaven, get me out of here and back to Florida! This place is crazy!"

As it turned out, my reaction was somewhere in between. Yes, I miss California, but not like I missed it a month ago. Now I see that it's not going anywhere, and that I can always get on a plane when I need to bury my feet in the cool sands of Redondo Beach. And yes, I felt a little relief coming back to Florida, but only because it's now my home. I've made it so. I'm living how I want and doing what I please. And besides, wherever my wife and son are, there is home. "Home is where the heart is" -- I finally get it.

So I feel a little like John Scopes. I've been dragged through the ringer, and although I have to admit defeat (leaving So Cal for Fla), my penalty (like his $100 fine) is not nearly as bad as it might have been. I came out ahead; let the wind blow.

Tropical depression

The flash and rumble of a rainstorm woke me at 5:00 AM. I shuffled into the living room and turned on the news, to see if there was a "named storm" brewing. That's important here in Florida because if the National Weather Service officially "names" a tropical storm, then your homeowner's insurance grinds into low gear. They'll only cover 80 percent of your losses, and you have to pay something like one and a half percent of your purchase price as a deductible. Or something usurious like that. There's nothing to be done about it by watching the news, of course, but at least you find out how much to worry.

Anyway, the weatherman didn't say anything about a named storm. He did, however, issue a tornado warning for my county and others. He said that he "wasn't trying to scare" me, but he wanted me "to take action". Such action, he noted, included hiding in a closet or under a bed! I wondered for a moment whether he meant I should actually stop watching his weathercast and leave the room, or just rest assured that he was concerned enough to offer the advice and thus prove that Channel 2 Action News is the caringest news organization in this one-ass town.

I did the only prudent thing; I went into denial about the tornado warning and punched up SportsCenter. I love football!

It's hot here.

Putting up Christmas decorations in Florida feels decidedly ridiculous. Although I did have to scrape frost off my windshield last "winter," it's just so damned balmy here that inflatable snowmen and polar bears and penguins seem as out of place as snowballs in hell, which figures. ("Florida--Like Hell, Only Hotter" reads the popular t-shirt.)

I went up to the attic to fetch the boxes full of seasonal stuff, and came back down looking like Harry Belafonte after the banana harvest. I was dripping. Then we started putting up stocking holders, snowman sculptures, reindeers, and the decorative fireplace screen. I love this stuff, but even when it's cold here, there is nothing remotely wintry about the great state of F.L.A.

I'll be spending Christmas and New Year's in Los Angeles, though...where the weather figures to be about the same. But at least on a clear day in SoCal, you can actually see snow-covered mountains from Redondo Beach. The only thing you can see from any beach in Florida is water and sand. In case you've never been here, it's flat as a flounder.

There's one born every minute.

The New York Dolls, or what's left of them, appeared on "Soundstage," which is the new "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert." To his credit, DJ was still slim, albeit a little creased, and long in the false tooth. The band sounded as good as they were supposed to, but it was weird seeing them on a high-tech stage with TV monitors all around. It was like they were a museum piece instead of a band with a new album out. Everything was too slick on stage and the camera angles came fast and furious. Well, hello? The band is supposed to be fast and furious! Which they were, so the camera work was totally superfluous and downright annoying. But then the band pulled the ultimate boner: they played "Personality Crisis" at much too fast a tempo. This is not uncommon with long-established bands playing their biggest--or only--hit. There's a tendency to rush through it, almost apologetically. But to make matters worse, DJ was laughing during it, as if to say "Hey, we're just doing this for a lark; I'm not taking this seriously." That's his prerogative, of course, and maybe I'm the pathetic one for expecting him to try to deliver a sincere performance. Maybe he was laughing because he knew he couldn't hit the high notes any more. But why would any performer purposely mock his own success? The only answer I can think of is that it was for the money--in which case, I'm the sucker for watching.

The feeling will pass...the feeling will pass...

There was an advertisement on the school district's website. The ad was for a job opening, and the opening was for a DBA. I know I could have gotten deep into the interview process, and maybe even won the job. The salary range's bottom end was ten thousand dollars more than I'm making now, and the high end was off the teacher salary charts. I thought wistfully, and with much heavy sighing, about how nice it was to make lots of money and never give it a thought. I can't do that any more. Then I imagined myself back in a cubicle, fixing errors, analyzing code, carrying a PAGER...and I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew I wouldn't be able to go back (unless I was really, really desperate, which I'm not), so I didn't apply for the job. After I'd made my mind up, I still felt a kind of longing, almost a yearning, for the old moneyed days. That will pass, right?

I'm in Florida, and I'm a teacher.

Has the ratio of smart kids to stupid kids changed? I'll never see 49 again, so that puts me over the hill in the eyes of many, but I think we were smarter in my day. I blame TV, consumerism, and uninvolved parents, and not necessarily in that order. Sorry, but families worked better when Mom (or Dad, I suppose) stayed home and reared the kids and made damn sure they did their homework. And kids were smarter when they didn't have so much god damned television so they played more and read more. Why do I finger consumerism? Because back in the day, if you couldn't afford something you just did without it. Now, both Mom and Dad work in order to afford the big screen, or the house they can't really afford (don't get me started on the real estate debacle). So who's minding Junior? MTV, that's who. Which would be OK, if Junior was studying MTV with a critical eye. But most Juniors are not. They are passive receptacles for the ideas of others, and they are not critical. They have few opinions, if you define "opinion" as a thought-out position. They have reactions, of course, which they flatter themselves as being opinions, but they are not. I keep telling the kids, fine, play the games, but learn to write the games as well. Most will not. We're teaching our kids to be consumers and not producers. How long can a nation of consumers hold out? What happens when the money runs out? Who knows...we can't even count back change any more.

Why do I live here?

One reason is the carefree adventure I just had with my kid. Unobstructed (mostly) and unmolested (mostly) by automobile traffc, we rode our bikes all the way to the bakery where my wife works and then we stuffed ourselves, gratis. Then we ambled across the parking lot to Target and lounged about on the patio furniture, cracking jokes and cracking up. All the while, we're basking in the gentle warmth and tropical breezes that sometimes caress this godforsaken peninsula. When it's nice here, it's very nice.