It’s been over 7 years since I started this blog. That was in early 2017, when I was strongly motivated by political events at the time to jump back into posting about the generations and the social era, as I had done in an earlier blog in the 2000s. The mood shift was palpable, I suppose.
In the years since, I have blogged the most about the current social era, which I call a “Crisis Era,” in keeping with the generational theory of which I am an advocate. This is a tumultuous time of political conflict and realignment (as you’ve probably noticed) and there will surely be much to blog about in the future.
One theme of this story has been my adjustment to being middle-aged. For my generation, Generation X, this means (hopefully) calming down – refraining from the wild and risky behavior of the past – and settling down – finding one’s roots after a life adrift. That is the life script of my generational archetype, and I truly believe that those of us who are successful at living that script will fare better once this era has come to an end, as all eras must do.
There are a still a few more years left of this Crisis Era, just as there a few more years left for me as a middle-aged person. In a couple of years, God willing, I will turn sixty, and not long afterward age into elderhood. Who knows what the world will look like then? I’m not sure what more I’ll have to blog about either. Maybe I’ll just start writing poetry or something like that.
For now, thank you, dear reader, for staying with me. I can’t promise you a bright future, just encourage you to keep your chin up, because we have a lot more change to live through.
I love to read books, which you might have figured out about me if you are familiar with this blog. I typically I am in the middle of mutliple books at once, reading each one in bits and pieces, so to speak. It can take me a long time to get through a book at this rate, but as long as it is well written I can pick it up even if I have left off of it for awhile. I have sometimes spent a year or two to finish reading a book. Taking notes helps with retaining comprehension, and also with the review that I will eventually write on goodreads, where I’ve been tracking my reading since 2019.
I read multiple books at once because I like to be reading books in different genres simultaneously, for example a work of fiction and a short work of popular history, and then also a heavier history book that will take longer to get through. It also happens because as I read a book, I get drawn into the subject matter, and then want to read other related books in my reading list.
For example, I was interested in brushing up my knowledge of the medieval period, so I started a book I had picked up at a thrift store, Life in a Medieval Village. But I also had a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine I had acquired around the same time, and was intrigued to compare and contrast the villagers’ lives with that of a powerful noblewoman. But then while reading about Eleanor I learned that she was a patroness of Marie of France, famous for her poetic lais, so then I broke out my copy of The Lais of Marie de France to brush up on those.
What have I done? How am I ever going to finish my 2024 reading challenge now if I am always starting new books?
So you understand what I’ve gotten myself into, I’ve posted a screenshot of what I am currently reading above. It’s from the sidebar of this blog, but I gave a screenshot since the dear reader could be looking at this post at any time, long after I’ve finished the books pictured. I will finish them all! Maybe not by the end of the year, though.
We watch a lot of streaming video, it can’t be denied. We’ve fully embraced the modern entertainment mode of binge-watching a television series. As a family we often watch shows together from beginning to end. For example, after finishing Better Call Saul, we just couldn’t help ourselves and rewatched Breaking Bad, all the way through, including the movie. Typically we watch a couple of episodes in a night, a couple of nights a week. You’d be surprised at how quickly you can go through multiple seasons of a series at that rate.
The girl and I have more time to watch other shows, when it is just the two of us, after the rest of the family has retired for the evening. We browse through our various streaming services, and pick a show we’ve heard good things about, or just try something based on the teaser. I like the mini-series format a lot; you can get a good story in without a huge time commitment. It’s a particularly good format for a mystery-type show – two that we’ve enjoyed recently are Bodkin (set in Ireland) and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (based on a young adult mystery crime novel).
When we like an ongoing show, we’ll tend to get caught up on it, but then we’re left hanging. We’re all caught up on Abbot Elementary (it’s just adorable, and set in Philly!) and now trying to figure out how to watch the last four episodes of Evil (you haven’t watched it? – it’s a hot mess but super fun!) but, as often happens, we find that we run out of content. We try some stuff out (there’s so much out there) but more often than not, a show doesn’t pull us in. There is a craft to good storytelling and a lot of what’s produced just doesn’t pull it off.
So then we go to YouTube and browse random informational videos, or watch the news which is just depressing (unless we watch it through the lens of late-night comedy shows, our preferred medium). How to overcome this television malaise?
Luckily, in this streaming era, it is possible to binge-watch old timey shows, from the good old days. You know the ones I’m talking about – the 1990s!
When we were still young, and life was full of promise.
The streaming platform Hulu is especially good for this kind of television watching, as they have the license to share a variety of old shows. We’re watching two from the 90s on Hulu now, depending on which group of family members is available for the evening.
One is The X-Files, for when we are all together. This is a show I actually didn’t watch much back in the day, so it’s mostly new to me. I just remember the general vibe of this show and its popularity then. It was pretty cutting edge in terms of graphic content for its time, which of course pales now compared to the 2000s stuff like Dexter. It has great writing and pacing, and an excellent score as well.
The other show we are watching, after Gavin has gone to bed, is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this case, I have watched it all the way through, but Aileen and Tiernan have not. They own the whole boxed DVD set, but just kept stalling out in the later seasons when trying to watch it (I suspect they got bored at Season 4, which is understandable).
Buffy has a sly sense of humor, and oh so much heart. It’s a joy to re-encounter the beloved characters, like reuniting with old friends. With me having to bite my tongue to not reveal any spoilers about what happens to them. What makes the show so wonderful is how, despite its completly fantastical supernatural premise, it is ultimately about friendship, loyalty and love. It’s a very Gen-X show that way, in my opinion; like Friends, but much more interesting and clever.
There’s something about these shows that seems simpler, more innocent. I know, an odd thing to say about the 1990s. It’s just that they evoke an era when the world’s problem’s seemed less intractable, the stakes lower. Both of these shows – Buffy and the X-Files – deal with otherworldy powers with immense potential to harm humanity, yet the characters confront them in an easy-going manner, with tongue in cheek. We all know we’re just playing with the idea of apocalypse here.
Apocalypse doesn’t seem so playful now, and screen entertainment has gotten darker, and more earnest, in response to the changing times. We’re living through an era of real-life danger now, which calls for courage and resolution, faith and hope.
And sometimes, it calls for a little escape, to a safe harbor in which to rest our minds and hearts. In our case, to the television shows of our past.
My next top 10 game is Axis & Allies, #5 on the top 10 list on my BGG profile. I’m making it my next blog post because I played it around the same time I was playing Magic: The Gathering, which was the first top 10 game I posted about. My preference was to play either the United States or Japan, and focus on the Pacific theater. I much preferred the naval maneuvering to the slog of the two-front war in Europe.
At the time that I played this game extensively, in the 1980s and 1990s, we didn’t have all the new versions available which focus on specific theaters or phases of the war, with all the new units and new rules. There were fan-made expansions available, with pieces that didn’t match the base game, but they were hard to come by.
While we liked Axis & Allies, my friends and I found the game as designed too restrictive. So we invented our own variant, where we played on home made maps, and set up our positions randomly, like you would in a game of Risk. Eventually we mixed in other games, and created a whole slew of new units using pieces from Fortress America and Supremacy. We called our Frankenstein monster of a wargame simply “The Game” and played it obsessively, and partied pretty hard while we did. Games would last all weekend long. Those sure were some great times, in a more carefree phase of my life.
So it was really The Game that I played extensively, not actually Axis & Allies, but that is why I put Axis & Allies on my top 10 list. I created a GeekList which breaks it all down, as best as I can remember it: Games that made up ‘The Game’.
I like that so many reimplementations and expansions to the original game have come out since the days when I played it. I did get a chance to play Axis & Allies: Pacific once (as the United States) and thorougly enjoyed it (possibly because I won). But for the most part I haven’t done much wargaming since the 2000s began. I don’t hang out with my old wargamer buddies any more; we’ve all moved far apart. So it goes in the life of a gamer.
What does that even mean, “I fell down a link tree rabbit hole?” It sounds like an odd thing to say but it makes perfect sense in the context of today’s Internet.
You may have heard of Linktree, a site that lets you create a personalized page with links to your social media or to content you are promoting. Then you include the link to your linktree in you bio on your social media profiles, creating a web of connections. Anyone who comes to one of your profiles can easily find all your other ones. If anything changes, you only have to update the linktree page, not each and every profile bio.
It sounds like a great idea, and I’ve noticed people putting their linktrees in their bios so I figured, why not do it, too? I found the site, was surprised and delighted to discover that “stevebarrera” was not taken, and easily created an account. I started building my list of links, and that was when I tumbled down the rabbit hole.
Turns out I needed to make a lot of choices before my link in bio page was done! I had to pick colors and font for the links, decide if the thumbnails should be icons or images, and if there should be headers. I could put additional social media link icons on the top or bottom of the page. And then I had to go to the sites I was linking to, and figure out where to put the link back to the link tree on those pages, where appropriate.
Overall, I had to come up with a sort of branding for my Internet self – how I wanted to present myself how I wanted to prioritize the links. So here’s what I came up with – take a look: linktr.ee/stevebarrera
You can easily make your own link tree for your profile bios. There are other options out there as well, like AllMyLinks and Campsite, and many more.
This photo showed up in the memories feed which my smartphone helpfully throws in my face every once in a while. It was one year ago today since I went back to the corporate campus of my previous job to turn in my laptop. I took this photo because this was a new building that wasn’t up yet when I left the campus to begin remote work in March 2020, and I was excited to see it on my return. It was under construction when I left and there was a lot of hubbub about it.
I think it’s a pretty building. The campus has this striking architectural design that resembles modern art, and this building fits right in. It also has a lot of stairs (I mean the campus as a whole does) which makes it challenging to walk around in if you are not physically fit. When I walked on that campus I felt my age. I felt like I was obsolescing as I was surrounded by the aggressive energy of a workforce that keeps growing younger with every new job I take.
I did go up that formidable looking staircase and go into the bulding. It was impressive on the inside, too, with a spacious lobby with some nice art installations. The security guy at the desk paid me no mind.
The campus was custom build for this corporation, and it must have cost a bundle. So I can understand why they wanted people returning to onsite work. Aileen and I speculated that maybe I was let go because I declined to go hybrid and wanted to stay 100% remote. They gave us the option to do either, and assured me that my decision to stay remote had nothing to do with my position being cut. But who knows.
I’m glad I made the choices I did, and that I amazingly was able to get a 100% remote job elsewhere after being let go. I feel very lucky to be in the position I am in today, and grateful for the support of my family here in Pennsylvania. I just can’t believe it’s been a year already at my new job. Tick tock.
When I was unexpectedly laid off at the beginning of the year, I scrambled to update my LinkedIn profile and my resume. I was not prepared to suddenly be looking for work.
If you are a white collar professional like me, then you know the drill. When you start a job search, you have to review your resume, which has probably been languishing, untouched since the last time you got an offer. It did what you needed it to do then, and you promptly forgot about it.
But now you need to update it with your latest experience, maybe streamline it so it’s not too long. Tweak it a little to reflect what’s new in your industry, so you look like you’re keeping up with the changing times. I mean, you are, of course, since you are a brilliant professional.
When I was doing this at the beginning of the year, I was feeling vulnerable. As I stated in my blog post then, I was thrown off balance. There was no way of knowing how long it would take me to find another position. And I was anxious about age discrimination; that the older you get, the harder it is to get hired.
Now they say that when you are doing up your resume, you should always phrase your experience in terms of how you were proactive and made a difference, rather than just list out the tasks that you performed. You’re trying to convince some hiring manager that you provide some special value. But “proactive” isn’t my vibe. My vibe is, I do the damn tasks and get the shit done. I am a worker bot. As I’ve told Aileen, my aspiration is to be like R2-D2: not a main character, but resourceful and reliable. The one you call on.
In the parlance of the corporate workforce, I am an “individual contributor.” I have never held a management or leadership position, nor have I ever sought one. I have worried a bit about what this means for my prospects, as I’ve noticed how other workers around me are younger than me by more and more years as time passes. Everyone my age, it seems, has moved on to management, to more impressive titles. But I am not seeking position or status; I just want to get paid to do work.
I know that it’s possible to finish my career this way, because I recall a job where there was an old-timer who was in the same position as me, but in his sixties. He was white haired and a little bit stooped and he was just doing his little low-level tasks under someone else’s direction. He actually retired while I was still working there. God willing, I thought, that could be me in twenty years. And that was ten years ago.
How could you let this guy go?
So I decided to embrace the idea of being an individual contributor. To own the brand, so to speak. I mention it explicitly in my LinkedIn profile, as well as how well I fit into any team (which is true, I believe). I also took a new profile pic, with the most puppy-dog-eyes look I could muster, like I want the hiring managers to see me as a rescue they just couldn’t turn away.
I guess it must have worked, since I got hired pretty quickly. I’m very lucky to be in a field where there is high demand for workers, and to have found a company that was in a hiring boom. The economy still works for some of us, and I just need it to keep working for me for another decade (or two?) so I can R2-D2 along, making a small difference.
What do you do when you want to play a board game, but your BFF who plays with you has gone away on a trip and left you home alone?
Why, you play board games solo, of course.
And no, I don’t mean playing a board game on your computer. I mean actually breaking out the physical game that comes in a box and setting it up on a table and playing a complete game. Not playing a pretend game where you are taking on the role of more than one player, but rather a single player game, with rules specifically designed for one player.
There are many multiplayer board games that have rules variations for solo play. In some games there is a goal, and you win or lose depending on whether you achieve it. In other games, you just play, calculate your final score, and then get ranked based on that score. Some games come with an “automa,” which is a set of special rules and usually a deck of cards to simulate an opponent taking actions on the board.
Me getting ready to lob an asteroid at Mars in a solo game.
Others, like my favorite, Terraforming Mars, just give you a challenge. You play the game as the only player and try to reach a certain game state within a fixed amount of turns. In the games I’ve played this week, I am trying to reach a certain score within 12 generations, showing how good I am at terraforming.
Is playing a board game by yourself really any fun? Well, yeah, if you are as much of a game addict as I am. You get the same challenge of figuring out your optimum strategy, the same tension as you’re not sure if the next random card draw will be in your favor or not, or if you’ll be able to achieve the game’s goal by the final turn.
And you get the same visual and tactile pleasure of working with physical components, which is why it is better playing on a tabletop than playing on a computer screen, even though it takes time to set up and break down the game. I feel the same way about multiplayer games, and there you get the bonus of face to face social interaction. And truthfully I would rather play a game with others than play a solo game, if the option is available.
But when it isn’t, a solo game will do. I’m not the only one who enjoys solitary board gaming, either. There’s a whole community out there; you can find them on social media sites and board game forums. It’s enough of a thing that there are articles about it, with recommendations of games to play when it’s just you and some time.
So if you find yourself hankering for a board game when there’s no one else around, see if any of the games on your shelf include solo rules. You just might find yourself enjoying solitary gaming as much as I do.
See how nice Mars looks after a few hundred years worth of terraforming?
When I lived in North Carolina, I used to go to a lot of game nights at people’s houses or at game stores, and play multiplayer tabletop board games. When Aileen came into my life, my priorities changed – I started traveling more, and going to see shows. But I kept up the gaming when I could, and Aileen joined me sometimes, even going to some of the same game nights and game conventions I was used to attending.
Then I moved to Pennsylvania, into an apartment about halfway between Aileen’s house and where I worked. I made an effort to recreate my gaming lifestyle, by going to a game store nearby that had open boardgaming on Friday evenings. I had only just started to make a habit of it and make friends there, when along came the pandemic.
During lockdown, I moved in with Aileen. There would be no game stores or game conventions for awhile, but we did play a lot of two player games. And still do. I’m very lucky to have a BFF who will play boardgames with me. Shared interests and activities is part of what makes our partnership work.
The games we like to play come in different forms. Many of them are lighter games, for when we have limited time or energy. They take an hour or so to play, and usually are in the modern vein of games that require strategic thinking. They are complicated enough to be challenging but simple enough that we might also bring them with us when traveling and be able to convince others to play with us. They are multiplayer but they play fine with just two players. Here are a few examples:
An old (1980s) photo of me playing Scrabble with Aileen.
A perennial favorite is Scrabble, which is easy to set up, and can even be played when a little unfocused, with the TV on and while socializing. Aileen and I have been playing since we first met as teenagers, long ago.
Scrabble has also always been a popular game in the extended Barrera family, one which we often play at family gatherings. I remember playing with my chain-smoking, hard-drinking aunts when I was growing up; they taught me that the game can be competitive and can be played ruthlessly.
When it’s just the two of us, Aileen and I often play modern-style games that are designed for two players, of which there are many in this Golden Age of boardgames. These also tend to be lighter, with quick set up and small footprints. Here is a short list of specifically two-player games we have played a lot:
Now my favorite kind of strategy board game is one that’s a bit heavier and takes at least a couple of hours to play. These require a more serious commitment of time and energy, as well as ample table space. Luckily for me, there are some of these that Aileen likes and is willing to play. The one we’ve played the most is Castles of Mad King Ludwig, which we call “the castle game.” If you follow me on social media, you have seen me post lots of pictures of the castles I’ve built.
Another one is Grand Austria Hotel, which we call “the hotel game,” and have even played while staying at hotels. This sometimes requires some creativity finding enough surface space to set up the game.
I made a more or less complete list of these kinds of heavier games that we play in two-player mode. I did this on BoardGameGeek using a format called a “GeekList.” I’ve already brought up BoardGameGeek session reports on this blog. A GeekList is another way one can contribute on that site; it can also be a convenient way to track games or even to hold an exchange or auction of some kind.
In the case of this GeekList I made, it’s just a collection of… My Favorite Medium Weight Multiplayer Games to Play with 2 Players. I hope you enjoy looking through it and, if you are lucky enough like me to have someone to play with, I highly recommend the games on this list as suitable for just two players.
As mentioned in a recent post, where I reviewed a book by a Gen X author, the girl and I went to our 40th year high school reunion at the end of September. Another milestone in this year of milestones.
I had been resisting going, since we already went to our 30th reunion in 2013. I mean, that was how Aileen and I reconnected, a story which has been partially revealed in this blog. Was there any reason to go back again, now that our own personal tale of reunion was complete?
But one of our classmates, Melanie, kept asking us about going and hanging out, and in the end we relented. It was too late to get a ticket to the main reunion event, which had sold out, but we could still show up at the informal events, and even hang out at the bar at the restaurant where the main event was, and meet up with people.
We got there on Friday, in time to join the homecoming parade, in which we marched, along with Melanie and about a dozen of our other classmates. I should mention that this was in Reston, Virginia, where Aileen and I met when we were teenagers, and that our school is South Lakes High School.
This was the first and only time in my life that I was ever in a parade. Our class was close to the front, after the marching band. Notably, our class of 1983 was the first one to fully occupy SLHS for all four years of high school, since the school was founded in 1979. So I guess that makes us kind of special, like we are the first ancestor generation of SLHS graduates.
As we walked the 1.8 miles from the starting location to our high school, the spectators lining the road cheered us on, often expressing surprise and delight to see graduates from so far back in time. “We’re old, but we’re still going!” we let them know.
The class of 1983 comes home to SLHS (40th reunion, September 2023).
You might recognize me and Aileen there on the left, wearing the caps. Melanie is in green in the center, and our two classmates who did the organizing to get us all together, Kathy and Sarah, are on the far right.
Not everyone from our class is still alive, naturally. To honor those who have passed away, their names were added to the banner. In that way they could march with us.
Names of our classmates who have passed away on our class banner.
After the parade, we went to a restaurant in Reston at Lake Anne Plaza to meet up with even more of our classmates. On the way, for fun, we drove by the house where Aileen used to live, and where I would frequently go to visit her, in our high school years. It looked very much the same, though we did note that there were a lot more cars than we used to remember in the neighborhood, which seemed a little rundown. It could be that the neighborhood is just old, like we are, or it could be that we remember it through rose colored glasses.
Reston is an interesting place. It was founded in 1964 as a “planned community,” meant to embody a new post-war ideal of land use that included ample green space, with room for both residential and commerical zones to develop in tandem, as well as room for both pedestrian and automobile traffic. With lots of walking paths and wide roads through wooded areas, and residential neighborhoods intermingled with commercial plazas, it’s sort of a middle-class consumer car culture utopia.
Having been founded around the time I was born, Reston is about my age; about the same age as everyone in my high school class, in fact. With its dated architecture of buildings and houses constructed during the Gen X childhood era, this town feels like a creche built just for our generation.
I remember it well from my teenage years. As we drove through town on our way to Lake Anne, I admired how nice Reston still looks, even as it evoked this nostalgic feeling. “I could move back here,” I told Aileen. But that is a highly unlikely scenario.
As it turned out, Aileen and I were able to get into the main reunion event after all, as not everyone who had reserved a spot was able to come. This happened on Saturday evening, in an events room at a nice restaurrant. I believe there were about 90 people attending, and the space was a bit small, so it felt crowded. We were a fairly large class; almost 400 people, and for a quarter of them to show up for the event is impressive, in my opinion. And many who couldn’t make it commented on the Facebook group, participating in spirit.
I had a great time, and very much enjoyed the feeling of solidarity with my old high school class. Many of the people from the 30th reunion in 2013 were there, and those are the folks I remembered the best. Back in my school days, I was kind of on the periphery, and honestly didn’t know most of my classmates. I hung out with the freaks and geeks, with the punk rockers and the stoners, who probably mostly didn’t show up for this occasion. If you’re from my class and don’t remember me, well that’s OK. It was so long ago, after all.
Aileen and Mr. Wareham, recreating a shot from the 1983 yearbook.
Our old high school principal, Mr. Wareham, was there! He is 84 years old. We chatted briefly, though it was hard to understand him in the noisy space. I learned that, after retiring from South Lakes, Mr. Wareham took postings overseas so he could travel the world. There was something comforting about his presence at the event, like it established a continuity with those distant but formative school years. And it helped me feel less old, knowing that an adult who was an authority figure in my late childhood is still alive.
I can’t deny, though, that going to your 40th high school reunion will make you feel old. We’re all deep in middle age now, many of us with adult children, divorces and remarriages, on their second careers or even retired already. Where did all those years go?
And yet I can attest that at a reunion, as was also the case ten years ago at our 30th, it feels very much like you are back from where you started, with all those same people you grew up with. It’s the same peer group, with the same social relationships, and the same personality types. No one’s really changed all that much. You’ve all just grown older.
As I said, we had a great time. Lots of pictures were taken, we enjoyed some food and beverage, listened to 1980s music, and had some good conversations. Late in the night we said our goodbyes. I have a feeling we will be back for the 50th in 2033, or the 45th in 2028, should that come together.
In retrospect, I thought that the 40th reunion felt more chill than the 30th, like we had all mellowed out a bit. The energy at the 30th was more hyped, with more anxiety and anticipation in the air. Maybe because we were all in our 40s instead of our 50s. Maybe because it had been a longer time (even longer than 10 years) since we had last seen one another.
The 30th reunion was the event in which Aileen and I reconnected, when I was still living in North Carolina. We had known each other in school, were very good friends, and dated when we were in college. After our mutual breakup which was totally mutual, we stayed in touch, and saw each other a few times in the 90s. But we didn’t see each other in the 2000s, not until the reunion in 2013.
Back then, we had recently connected on Facebook. It’s a common enough experience for Gen Xers to have reconnected with their old school friends on that site, and sort of gotten a fast forward catchup on everything that happened to one another in the past twenty years, before there was social media. Aileen, for example, now had two sons. I had a house.
In 2013, Aileen kept sending me posts and messages, asking me to come to the reunion, until I finally relented. When we met up during the day, before the main event, it was like we had never been apart. When I looked at he face, I saw the girl I knew thirty years earlier. It was October 19, the same day that I’m writing this, and we went to a matinee of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, and just enjoyed one another. We still call this day our “birdeversary.” At the reunion event, we danced together, had a wonderful time, then went our separate ways.
The next year, I called Aileen on her birthday. From that point on, our relationship just kept building. We started visiting each other, and then, as you may know, in 2018 I sold my house in North Carolina, moved up to Pennsylvania, and now live with her in her house.
This whole story was news to some of our classmates at the 40th reunion. But at least one of them was tracking, and had some kind thoughts to share about us. He called us the “feel good story of the last decade.”
It does feel good to be reunited, to be connected and in a family. I honestly think that I would not be in a healthy place if I had stayed single and alone in my house in North Carolina, though I do miss the area and the friends I made there. And though I was mostly comfortable in solitude, a voice inside me was urging me to get out and find someone, and luckily, Aileen found me.
Staying connected, even if only through a support network of trusted friends and family, is crucial to your well-being. It leads to better outcomes in life; I know it has for mine. It is in being together with others that we ensure a happy future for ourselves.
