Looking Back

Did we just live through the Aughts? What do you call 2000-2009? I've seen some lists lately proclaiming "The 50 Best Albums of the Aughts" and so forth. How come the first time I hear the official title for the decade is after it is already over?

My good friend JW wrote a thoughtful essay about what the last decade has meant to him and how his life changed over those ten years at his blog. Excellent piece of writing, check it out here at A Special Way of Being Afraid, entitled "Thoughts on a Decade." He inspired me to look back and do the same for my last ten years. And funny enough, I was ringing in 2000 in that same Houston apartment where JW discusses starting his decade. What a relief it was to find that our computers all didn’t come to life and hunt us down like Terminators, or whatever the Y2K thing was all about. Remember that scare? Why did we need faux nightmare scenarios when a year and a half later we would have a real one?

I started The Aughts in the midst of law school at the University of Texas at Austin. I had reluctantly but somewhat hopefully left a career in teaching in the search for more fulfillment and money. Well, mainly money. If fulfillment followed, all the better. Law school was fantastic. I lived within walking distance from the UT campus in Austin. Saw and met my hero Colin Hay at a small show, saw Jeff Beck, CSNY, Springsteen, U2, Moby and Tenacious D all while living in Austin. It was not too difficult other than around finals time. I loved being a law student. Lawyer? Not so much. I will say that studying for and taking the Texas Bar Exam was the most difficult thing I have ever done. Imagine spending about three months in almost total isolation, save your cat and the squirrels that hang out on the UT campus where you study. Those are some bold, desensitized squirrels. They ate peanuts out of my hand as I lectured them on the finer points of Adverse Possession and Estate Taxation. They are now very educated squirrels.

2001 was a tough year for two reasons. One is shared by all of us. I was sleeping. The phone rang. My friend Brian told me to turn on the TV, some dumbass flew into the World Trade Center. I turned on the TV in time to catch the immediate aftermath of the second plane. I watched the Pentagon get hit live. I watched as the media learned about the Pennsylvania plane. I watched both towers fall live. I watched as the media could not locate the President of the United States. Then I had to go to class. Most were cancelled, except for Payment Systems. If we don’t learn about Payment Systems on 9/11, then the terrorists win. Unless you lived in NYC or DC, you experienced 9/11 through the television.

Months later, I lost my brother Rick. To be honest, we had been expecting his demise for at least a decade due to both his mental illness and the choices that he made, but it still hits you hard when it happens. I remember mostly him laughing and smiling. I also remember a conversation I had with him one of the last times I ever saw him. He fully anticipated his fate, and was quite philosophical about it. And he always played cars with me when I was little. RIP Rick.

I have always despised math and numbers. So it makes sense that the first job I took out of law school was as a property tax attorney in San Antonio. Although I did it for about a year and a half, I still have no clue about how property taxes work. I met a girl, we dated, we broke up, we got back together, we moved in together, we got engaged, we got disengaged, and I never saw her again. All within one year. I was able to pawn the engagement ring for about 1/3 of what I paid for it. But that was a start, because I needed the money to move back to the place I always call home, Houston. Everywhere else is a place to live, but Houston is always where I feel most grounded. My old stomping grounds, you know?

After a long lost weekend (well, several lost months) I was able to find employment at a Houston law firm. Thus started the most fun two years of my life. The legal work that I did at this time was so easy it was hardly work at all. But I was able to travel to all corners of Texas, all paid for by our clients. I met some new friends that are still amongst my closest friends, and I reconnected with some old friends who I thought were gone for good. I played poker two or three nights a week, got paid lots of money to do very little, traveled everywhere all expenses paid, went to Mexico a lot with some fun and shady associates. I basically did what some people do in college, but got paid. Also bungie jumped and skydived within the same year.

At one particular deposition I saw this beautiful attorney who I had to meet. I think it was her long, dark hair that first caught my attention. Always looking out for my clients’ interests, I spent most of the deposition hitting on her. Or at least trying to talk to her. I came up with some excuse to get her to go to dinner with me and some other attorney friends before she returned to San Antonio. Once she pulled out that Star Trek credit card to pay for her meal, I was hooked. To have the stones to whip out a Star Trek credit card at a table full of lawyers and just not give a shit? Gorgeous attorney chick with a serious geek side as well? Nothing hotter. After dinner, I called my friend Willis and told him that I just met my future wife. Seriously. Ask him.

Fast forward: a year of long distance dating and weekend trips between SA and Houston, and I decide to make her my bride. She made more money than I did, so it made sense that I move to SA. Good thing. The law firm that I worked for in Houston folded six months after I left. I had nothing to do with it.

I then worked for one of the best law firms in SA and hated it. I distinctly remember a trip to Phoenix for a week with my boss for a big case. The best attorney I have ever come across. In Phoenix I had to keep him entertained, so we went to many bars and strip clubs during the evenings to pass the time. Late one evening, he had a drunken but serious conversation with me. “Dez, you are a good lawyer and you are really smart. But to be a great lawyer, you need to be an asshole. Nothing comes before your work. Not family, not anything. Will you promise me something, Dez? Will you try to be more of an asshole?” Sure thing, boss. Soon after that firm and I parted ways, I had a long period of soul searching and unemployment (my wife was amazing to stay with me during that period). Then I did some more legal work and still hated it.

My aunt shot herself in the head at the end of ’07. That was a shock, since she had always proclaimed to despise guns. She was a fellow music obsessive, but from a different era. With no children of her own, her nieces and nephews were special to her. She always dealt with children better than adults anyway. I think she viewed us as her co-conspirators. Then we grew up. She left behind a “final” mix CD to be played. A woman after my own heart. I’d do that. So we played some of the tunes at her funeral. The capper? Frankie's "My Way." Hell yeah. I remember Christmases decades gone with the most affection. RIP Bunny.

Finally, I returned to the profession that I had left in the late 90’s. I am a teacher of History and love it. Had a fantastic honeymoon road trip in California, went to Maui over the summer. Listened to lots of Iz. Now we have a baby girl coming in two months.

So, what conclusions to draw from this last decade, the tumultuous Aughts? Professionally, I am back to where I was before. Great detour, though. Lost some important people in pretty unnatural ways. Overall, though, I had a lot of fun these last ten years. Fun and some intense, trying times. But my lovely wife and I are excited about the little adventure that is supposed to pop out around the 1st of March. Here's hoping for some killer Teens.