I’m on a vacation of sorts, more of a staycation but in someone else’s home. Relaxing by a pool, listening to people complain about the heat, trying to find time to read without interruption, failing miserably in that quest, things of that nature. I don’t think I’m alone in finding vacations to be fairly, well stressful. A large part of this is because of how spoiled I have become by long term travels. Once you spent multiple months leisurely working your way through Western Europe or SE Asia, it’s hard to attain a similar excitement about a week in Galveston. This is without a doubt peak first world problem, but I am who I am and I pretending I haven’t lived the life I have lived would be dishonest and counterproductive. But I think the stress of vacation is also a common American problem, one built upon the nature of American society. It’s no secret that American’s are allowed less time off work than just about every other western nation on earth, and honestly less time than most non western nations. Between a complete lack of guaranteed maternity leave, sick days and vacation days often combined into two weeks per year of “Paid Time Off” that also isn’t mandated, a criminal lack of national holidays, and often times an expectation that even if you are on vacation you should still be reachable for work related issues, American’s are some of the most frequently working people on earth. This often leads to a feeling that every vacation must be absolutely filled to the brim with activity. The number of times I’ve had people tell me they saw three European countries in 8 days, or spent a week in Germany that somehow included 4 stops is alarming, and it exhausts me just hearing about it. Now I don’t have a solution, other than to completely rebuild American society from the ground up, and that sounds even more exhausting. But I would like to suggest, humbly, that the next time you take a trip, do less. Spend a week in one city, schedule fewer activities, and allow yourself to just exist, move at a leisurely pace, maybe do nothing at all for a day or two. Maybe you won’t see everything Paris has to offer, but you will enjoy what you experience far more. Anyways, that was Thing One, Welcome to Nine things

Thing Two: Last week we talked about abortion, I am in favor of it being accessible, to anyone who wants it, at anytime. This has been well established. But currently existing in a very small town in Texas has me contemplating a cultural divide that I hadn’t thought about in a while. That divide is between those who’s general life goals are family oriented, and those that are self oriented. There is obviously somewhat of a South and Midwest vs Northeast and West Coast divide, but I think generally this is more of a rural vs urban divide. In my hometown, and in so many small towns like it, the goal of life as it were, is to get married, start a family, and then orient your life around improving things for your family. Buying a better, larger house, moving to a better school district, taking a job with more conventional hours, preferring to stay employed in one place so that health benefits and retirement savings and 401Ks stay intact and grow. All of this helps support the family oriented lifestyle, and is what attracts them to more rural or suburban areas where these goals are more easily attained. But crucially, especially as it relates to the abortion debate, children are the most important element of the family oriented lifestyle. Without kids, none of the rest of the program makes sense. The darkest version of this is the one where it is used to control women, because if a man is in search of a family oriented lifestyle, he doesn’t want women to be interested in other lifestyles. That messes with the program. That is a larger topic for another Thing, but I do want to stress I don’t think this is by any means the majority of family oriented men, I think most genuinely have always wanted to be the father of a family with a wife and two or three kids and suburban house and a steady job.

Then there are the self oriented lifestyle people. For them, the goal of life is to become some type of person, independent of other people. They do not wish to be defined by their role as a parent or spouse, but rather by who they have become on their own. These people tend to put greater value on the type of job that they do, but also on their hobbies and interests. They are far less loyal to a particular employer, preferring best to move to wherever offers best pay and benefits. They wait longer to have kids, and thus often have more disposable income. This in many ways is what attracts them to the city. It’s not much fun to have extra cash if you have nothing to spend it on. But the most important thing for them is that they are ever progressing towards becoming the version of themselves that they want to be, the way they envision themselves. In this scenario, where children and family are not end goals in and of themselves, a child that comes along to soon becomes an obstacle. And especially in America where we provide so little support comparatively to parents, a child can completely derail that life plan. These people are not inherently selfish, in fact they often are far more charitable to strangers and big picture programs, though as with the family oriented people, they have dark version that is absolutely as selfish and self serving and manipulative as one can imagine. But in general they just have other priorities.

Now of course these are two extremes of a sliding scale and most people lie somewhere in between. America’s failing in this regard of course is pitting these two poles against each other, rather than creating a system a system of welfare and support wherein a person can strive to be who they want, have children when they want, and know that they will always have resources to help with raising those children without having to compromise who they are. Parents sacrifice enough, they shouldn’t have to sacrifice their true selves.

Thing Three: There is a business in this town called Dixie something or other with a confederate flag at the center of their logo. My thoughts on the confederate have been documented elsewhere (just search through my facebook for a long rant) but to summarize I think it’s racist, I think it’s the flag of traitors, and also the flag of losers. I mean it’s not hard to gain independence, it happens all the time. Even Canada gained its independence. But I digress, what I really wanted to discuss is how bad of a business strategy this is. Yes, of course every private business is allowed to display whatever racist logo they want. It’s a free country (for white men) and people should be allowed to exercise their freedom. But it is also just incredibly dumb. I mean you could replace that flag with an American flag, everyone who didn’t mind the racist loser flag would also support the American flag, and also people who don’t support the racist loser flag would now feel more comfortable doing business with you. It’s just sound business strategy.

Thing Four: I would like to start a revolution. That revolution is of course for men to be able to wear shirts to swim in the pool or the ocean or wherever without being made fun of. As one of American’s premier melanin lackers, I have quite a vested interest in this. But also given what we know about the suns effect on skin long term (skin cancer, wrinkles, moles, farmer’s tans) I think as a society we would greatly benefit from swim shirts being more socially acceptable (actually this would make farmer’s tans more of an issue, but we must all make sacrifices). Whats strangest about this is that the tendency to value tanning and topless males is most prominent amount us whites. From float trips in Oklahoma to the beaches Nicaragua to kayaking in Thailand, I encountered far more shirt acceptance among those prone to tanning than those prone to burning. We need to change this. Take pride in your skin, but also keep it safe.

Thing Five: I have kind of a complicated relationship with craft beer. On the one hand, I make it, I drink it, I love it. On the other hand, like all 21^st Century hobbies, I hate discussing it with other enthusiasts. This is largely because in our modern times enthusiasm largely translates to “I spend most of my time criticizing this thing I purport to love.” That and as the hobby becomes more popular, it inevitably becomes more expensive. So while the craft beer industry moves increasingly towards to $35 bottles of stout, I find more and more comfort in drinking a 6 pack of High Lifes (High Lives?). There is an alternate universe out there where the craft beer movement pushed toward providing ever increasing quality at ever decreasing prices. Maybe that’s not possible, in fact I’ve worked in the industry long enough to know it’s not. So I guess I have no point here, or at least no solution. But as I sit drinking an Elk Valley Straight Razor Pale Ale (available wherever fine beers are sold, oh you thought this was gonnna be a disclosure, Negative, I have no morals) I can’t help thinking that what the world needs now are more well made, reasonable priced pale ales, pilsners, and the like.

Thing Six: I’m gonna talk about something that is probably going to be the most unpopular opinion I have ever expressed but here it goes anyways; stop it with your dogs. I have two dogs, they’re great, I love them, they lay around and do absolutely nothing and are thus my greatest inspiration. They are not however my entire personality, and I absolutely do not try to force them on everyone I encounter. The problem I think, or at least one of them, is living in a city, dominated by the self oriented people described above, the parental instinct has been quelled by redirecting it towards furry friends. But this leads to scenarios were people take the same liberties with their dogs that others take with children. And what is very annoying but often understandable with regards to kids, is just annoying with dogs. No, I do not want to pet your dog, no it’s not cute when it comes and sits on me when I didn’t invite it over, no it’s not fine that it keeps barking at every other dog that walks in the brewery because you’re trying to acclimate it to other dogs, yes it is in the way when it lies down in the middle of a walkway in a bar, yes it is legal to ask if your dog is a service animal stop spreading that dumb lie, no it is not ok for me to give your dog water and then for you to leave without cleaning up the water your dog splashed all over the fucking the floor, also no I don’t have a bowl bring your own dog supplies I serve beer to humans. Dog people have taken all of the entitlement of parents without the responsibility. Dogs are not people, they are not children, and we should not have to accommodate them as a society if we don’t want to. And heaven forbid you be allergic in this day and age, you wouldn’t be able to go out.

Thing Seven: There is a meme going around asking why we pay all kinds of taxes (sales tax, property tax, things of that nature) in addition to income taxes. It’s kind of a right end of the spectrum complaint, as most tax complaints are. But I want to address this issue because as a very left end of the spectrum person I also don’t like the way we do taxes. The most obvious reason for our confusing and annoying tax system is that it is confusing and annoying. This creates frustration, which makes people hate taxes, which makes people support tax cuts. If instead of tax cuts, republicans said “we’re gonna reduce the amount of money available to improve roads and schools and emergency services so that you can keep about $50 extra a year and the richest Americans can save literal millions” than fewer people would support tax cuts. Note the these lowering of taxes almost always refer to income taxes, which overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans. When was the last time someone passed a sales tax reduction or property tax reduction.

The other reason our taxes are labyrinthine and decentralized is that it makes it harder for you to know how much you are paying, how much others are paying, and where the tax burden lies. This is to hide the comparatively small amount the rich pay in American compared to other nations. American’s top 15% have one of the highest tax rates…if you ignore deductibles. That America’s wealthy have one of the highest tax rates and yet pay some of the lowest amounts of actual taxes is why we have a confusing tax system. If you can afford a high end tax accountant the amount of ways you can avoid paying taxes are endless, if you can’t well you can take the standard deduction. To make up for the budget deficits this always creates you have a sales tax, which falls heavily on the lower classes, and property taxes which fall heaviest on middle classes. This gives you a tax system designed to spare the rich, anger the rest, and create support to further lower taxes.

Thing Eight: I recently finished Hola Papi by John Paul Brammer. I cannot recommend this book enough. A series of anecdotes from someone growing gay and Mexican in rural Oklahoma, it is equal parts earnest, moving, and funny. While I have almost nothing in common with Brammer, I think anyone who grew up in Oklahoma with a way of thinking that diverged from standard Oklahoma ideology will find something to connect with. And even if you don’t, it’s always a good idea to expose yourself to alternate viewpoints.

Thing Nine: Before I said that I was gonna use Thing Nine to talk travel. But I think more specifically I want to use it to try and convince you, no doubt avid and enthralled reader, to travel more. I shall attempt to accomplish this by pitching you on a specific place. These may be cities, or regions, or whole countries, but will probably always be international, as I think more than anything in life international travel has most improved my life and opened up my worldview. That and joining a Latino fraternity in college, but again I digress. So for this edition of Nine Things I would like to talk you into visiting Montreal

Montreal is in many ways I think the perfect place for an American to visit as a first international city. Depending on what part of the country you live in Canada may be the closest country to you, and while I contemplated opening with Mexico City (possible spoiler for next edition) I settled on Montreal for its combination of exotic and comfortable. For starters, Montreal is just a truly beautiful city. Its architecture runs the gauntlet from colonial era French to art deco, but even the most modern skyscrapers have a style that feels very Montreal. It’s also a city of natural beauty, sitting on the St Lawrence river, with the namesake Mont Royal a beautiful park in the city. Montreal is also one of the great food cities of North America, and honestly one of the best I have visited on earth. From staples like Poutine (you think its simple until you’ve had it done right) to the mixture of styles from the numerous immigrants to the cities, combined with the food as art ethos that is so French, the city is a gastronomical treat. It’s full of fantastic museums, a beautiful old French quarter, and one of the most stunning cathedrals I’ve ever seen. A perfect city to spend 5 days in.

But back to that combination of exotic and comfortable, in Montreal they speak French. It’s the first language of the vast majority of its citizens; in line for coffee, sitting next to the river, walking through an art museum, you hear almost exclusively French. It gives the whole experience that feel of being in a foreign place; as much as I love Toronto and considered it as well for this space, visiting Toronto just doesn’t feel that different from visiting a city in the US. But Montreal absolutely feels like a different country. Yes there is lots of French influence in New Orleans, and the combination with African American and Caribbean culture is uniquely tremendous and makes it my most recommended American city; but the truth is that it doesn’t feel as foreign as Montreal, and that comes down to language. At the same time you will not get lost in Montreal. Every single one of those French speakers also speaks English (this is not necessarily true in Quebec City, or the province of Quebec at large) and will happily switch languages to assist you. All street signs and menus will have English, and there will be just enough McDonalds and H&Ms around to make you feel comfortable. If you can afford a vacation in New York or Las Vegas or even my beloved New Orleans, you can afford a trip to Montreal. And while I love those cities, I think you will gain more, and grow more, from a trip to Montreal. That’s all for this edition friends. Stay safe out there, read a book, drink a beer, dodge work as much as possible.