Showing posts with label Curmudgeonry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Curmudgeonry. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Perspective
"Tonight, we not only speak to the members of the Greater Jerusalem Baptist Church. We not only speak to Baptist people tonight. We not only speak to the Methodist people tonight. Church of God in Christ, Catholics, or no particular denomination. No particular city. But tonight we speak to the whole nation. Tonight, our message: Drop the hate! Forgive each other!"
I've been thinking about my problems lately, and sometimes feeling sorry for myself for the hurts done to me, and sometimes feeling guilty for the hurts I've done to others.
And then I think, really, things are pretty fuckin' good.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no one actively working to end my existence because of who I am or what I believe.
I'm surrounded by people that I love, who make me smile and laugh out loud almost every single day.
I have such an abundance of clean drinking water, that I expel my bodily wastes into it all the time.
I have such an abundance of food, that I track my consumption with a handheld computer that sends data to and receives data from space just so I don't eat too ridiculously much.
My greatest health concern is trying not to get sick from too much pleasure.
I have a job with health benefits and a salary that allows me not only a nice home and all that food and water, but also the ability to do almost anything I want, almost any time I want.
And virtually everyone I know has all of these things, too.
Clearly, some of these ideas I owe to the incomparable Louis CK:
"You're in a chair in the sky!"
"But, it doesn't lean back very much..."
Ha. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yeah.
When I look around, I'm baffled to see so many people so determined to be angry and unhappy. At work and in my private life, there are several people that seem to work very hard at being mad. They look closely for new injustices that have been heaped upon them by cruel circumstance and cruel people.
I hate being mad. I want it to end as soon as possible. I hate lying awake at night going over and over in my mind how angry I am. I'd rather sleep peacefully and wake up rested and refreshed. So I wonder: are there physical differences in our brains such that some people experience anger as a pleasurable sensation? I've always said of some people, "They're not happy unless they're mad," and now I'm wondering if it's literally true. Is anger akin to joy in the brains of some people? Are there studies on this, complete with colorful images of parts of the brain "lighting up" at the opportunity to tell someone else that they said or did the wrong thing, or said or did it the wrong way, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons? And to tell them over and over again, with white-hot rage?
The phrase "righteousness orgasm" popped into my brain the other day to describe the apparently climactic joy in expressing outrage at perceived victimization of a just or innocent person, and we all tend to think of ourselves as at least mostly just and innocent. It can be seen in comments sections all over the internet, and I think it's what Lenore Skenazy noticed in this post on Free-Range Kids. It's an outrage that seems easiest to express in writing, because face-to-face communication allows too much humanization of the offending party, too much explanation of extenuation, too much give and take, to really allow a good orgasmic buildup of righteous indignation.
I know I've indulged in the righteousness orgasm now and again, and even recently. I'm trying though, Lord. I'm trying.
Anyway, now I'm going to go turn my Pandora from Rage Against the Machine back to Lyle Lovett. And tomorrow, I'm told, is Aloha Friday. I've never been to Hawaii, but I have no doubt I can only benefit from more ukulele in my life.
Aloha, fuckers! Namaste, bitches!
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Songs About the New World
Aerie and I arranged to get together last night and talk details for our divorce decree. We're doing our best to make this transition as amicable as possible. I've been saying and thinking that word a lot lately. Amicable. Amicable.
And now that we're not living together, and we're navigating our new lives apart and our new schedules as Joint Managing Conservators instead of, you know, whatever we were before, things really are fairly amicable. I look around me at the divorce stories that suddenly seem to be everywhere, and if divorcing well is a competition, I think we're winning. She's not taking out a Protective Order against me and fighting in court for full custody. We're not pitting our friends against each other or making them choose sides. She's not hiding money from joint accounts. I'm not stalking her, or playing mind games or threatening her with dastardly deeds. Neither of us is telling Thumper that the other parent is awful. He's not a pawn in some jacked up game between us. We're just... you know... amicable.
But with all this amicability flying around everywhere, and with the excitement of exploring my new life outside of all of the old roles and patterns I'd been living under for so many years, I thought that I was past the point of getting upset. Yes, I really thought that after 23 years, I was emotionally over the hump, just six months after the word "divorce" was first uttered. I wasn't.
I've picked Thumper up and dropped him off at her house, that used to be our house. I've driven through the neighborhood before and been inside the house picking up clothes and furniture and piles of stuff. But last night, for some reason, it hit me harder. I saw neighbors walking and jogging through the neighborhood that used to be mine but isn't now, that I used to walk and jog through but won't anymore. The loop that I used to push a stroller around, past that playground we've been going to since Thumper was a brand new baby and I was a brand new stay-at-home dad. I stood on the porch and rang the bell. I didn't make myself at home and get a soda out of the fridge, or plates from the cabinet for the sandwiches I brought for us to eat while we worked. It's her house now, her stuff, her kitchen. I used the guest bathroom, not the master, and when I came out and sat down at the kitchen table to start working with her on details, I was a little shocked to find myself crying. The anger, the sorrow, the regret, the loss, they are all still real, no matter how much I want them to be memories now.
I hadn't been on the blog in quite some time. I saw I had an unpublished draft post from January, about the time the d-word first came up, that was entirely the lyrics to "Love's Recovery" by Indigo Girls. At the time, there still seemed a slim chance, but now our storm has passed and that slim chance is gone. A lot of the words fit, including the friends we thought were so together. So I'm sure I'm a cliché, 43 and divorcing, but the emotions don't feel so cliché now that I'm in them.
But now I'm just getting maudlin.
It's funny how things come to us sometimes all at once. I've never been much of a country music fan. I have a dear friend who's let me borrow her truck a few times through all of this moving of stuff, and a good many of her stereo's presets are country stations. Not wanting to jack with her settings, I listened to country music while I drove. I also worked a country music festival at my beloved arena not too long ago, and I thought some of those songs were downright toe-tappable. But still, I think of myself as too good to listen to country, really, and complained about having "Rock me, Mama, like a wagon wheel" stuck in my head. I think I'm too smart, I suppose. I have an ugly bias against it where words like "hillbilly" and "redneck" and "Deliverance" pop into my mind.
Then a friend posted a photo of what she saw as "a cool cat," and I was transported instantly back to 1979, when Hoyt Axton appeared on my favorite TV show, WKRP in Cincinnati. I still remember the hooks to "Jealous Man" and "Della and the Dealer" from that show, though honestly, I must've seen them over and over again in syndication throughout the '80s for me to have memorized them like that. But I instantly commented on my friend's picture, "If that cat could talk, what tales he'd tell about Della and the dealer and the dog as well. But that cat was cool, and he never said a mumblin' word." She probably wondered what in the hell any of that had to do with a cat she saw on a street in Italy.
Later, I read Film Crit Hulk's article about Disney's Robin Hood that mentioned Roger Miller's original songs, and I found myself again inexplicably contemplating a master of '60s tongue-in-cheek country storytelling. So today, while spending the rest of my lunch hour walking around and around the concourse of my beloved arena to burn off the brisket and sausage I ate, I plugged "Hoyt Axton" into Pandora on my phone and spent a little bit of a while with Hoyt, Roger, Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Hank Jr., Merle, Jerry Reed, and Jimmy Dean. I don't know why I'm on a first name basis with everybody but Jerry and Jimmy, but there you go. I didn't even know Jimmy Dean was a singer. I thought he just sold sausage. My mom met him in an Eckerd's drug store once. Or so my faulty memory tells me the story goes.
So I was smiling as I walked, 'round and 'round, both at the music and at my own folly. I've always known so many things that it turned out I didn't know at all. Like that my marriage would last forever, and that I hated country music. That the end of the marriage would be the end of the world. But nah. It's working out. I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane.
And now that we're not living together, and we're navigating our new lives apart and our new schedules as Joint Managing Conservators instead of, you know, whatever we were before, things really are fairly amicable. I look around me at the divorce stories that suddenly seem to be everywhere, and if divorcing well is a competition, I think we're winning. She's not taking out a Protective Order against me and fighting in court for full custody. We're not pitting our friends against each other or making them choose sides. She's not hiding money from joint accounts. I'm not stalking her, or playing mind games or threatening her with dastardly deeds. Neither of us is telling Thumper that the other parent is awful. He's not a pawn in some jacked up game between us. We're just... you know... amicable.
But with all this amicability flying around everywhere, and with the excitement of exploring my new life outside of all of the old roles and patterns I'd been living under for so many years, I thought that I was past the point of getting upset. Yes, I really thought that after 23 years, I was emotionally over the hump, just six months after the word "divorce" was first uttered. I wasn't.
I've picked Thumper up and dropped him off at her house, that used to be our house. I've driven through the neighborhood before and been inside the house picking up clothes and furniture and piles of stuff. But last night, for some reason, it hit me harder. I saw neighbors walking and jogging through the neighborhood that used to be mine but isn't now, that I used to walk and jog through but won't anymore. The loop that I used to push a stroller around, past that playground we've been going to since Thumper was a brand new baby and I was a brand new stay-at-home dad. I stood on the porch and rang the bell. I didn't make myself at home and get a soda out of the fridge, or plates from the cabinet for the sandwiches I brought for us to eat while we worked. It's her house now, her stuff, her kitchen. I used the guest bathroom, not the master, and when I came out and sat down at the kitchen table to start working with her on details, I was a little shocked to find myself crying. The anger, the sorrow, the regret, the loss, they are all still real, no matter how much I want them to be memories now.
I hadn't been on the blog in quite some time. I saw I had an unpublished draft post from January, about the time the d-word first came up, that was entirely the lyrics to "Love's Recovery" by Indigo Girls. At the time, there still seemed a slim chance, but now our storm has passed and that slim chance is gone. A lot of the words fit, including the friends we thought were so together. So I'm sure I'm a cliché, 43 and divorcing, but the emotions don't feel so cliché now that I'm in them.
But now I'm just getting maudlin.
It's funny how things come to us sometimes all at once. I've never been much of a country music fan. I have a dear friend who's let me borrow her truck a few times through all of this moving of stuff, and a good many of her stereo's presets are country stations. Not wanting to jack with her settings, I listened to country music while I drove. I also worked a country music festival at my beloved arena not too long ago, and I thought some of those songs were downright toe-tappable. But still, I think of myself as too good to listen to country, really, and complained about having "Rock me, Mama, like a wagon wheel" stuck in my head. I think I'm too smart, I suppose. I have an ugly bias against it where words like "hillbilly" and "redneck" and "Deliverance" pop into my mind.
Then a friend posted a photo of what she saw as "a cool cat," and I was transported instantly back to 1979, when Hoyt Axton appeared on my favorite TV show, WKRP in Cincinnati. I still remember the hooks to "Jealous Man" and "Della and the Dealer" from that show, though honestly, I must've seen them over and over again in syndication throughout the '80s for me to have memorized them like that. But I instantly commented on my friend's picture, "If that cat could talk, what tales he'd tell about Della and the dealer and the dog as well. But that cat was cool, and he never said a mumblin' word." She probably wondered what in the hell any of that had to do with a cat she saw on a street in Italy.
Later, I read Film Crit Hulk's article about Disney's Robin Hood that mentioned Roger Miller's original songs, and I found myself again inexplicably contemplating a master of '60s tongue-in-cheek country storytelling. So today, while spending the rest of my lunch hour walking around and around the concourse of my beloved arena to burn off the brisket and sausage I ate, I plugged "Hoyt Axton" into Pandora on my phone and spent a little bit of a while with Hoyt, Roger, Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Hank Jr., Merle, Jerry Reed, and Jimmy Dean. I don't know why I'm on a first name basis with everybody but Jerry and Jimmy, but there you go. I didn't even know Jimmy Dean was a singer. I thought he just sold sausage. My mom met him in an Eckerd's drug store once. Or so my faulty memory tells me the story goes.
So I was smiling as I walked, 'round and 'round, both at the music and at my own folly. I've always known so many things that it turned out I didn't know at all. Like that my marriage would last forever, and that I hated country music. That the end of the marriage would be the end of the world. But nah. It's working out. I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane.
Friday, May 10, 2013
I Don't Hate You, But I Kind of Do
A few days ago, a friend linked to this video based on an excerpt from a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. I usually sigh and roll my eyes over internet videos longer than 3 minutes or so, but this one is worth every second of its 9 1/2 minutes. I've been thinking about it all week. I can't fathom how I can be so inconstant myself (sometimes deeply in love, sometimes deeply annoyed, sometimes kind, sometimes selfish, sometimes patient, sometimes incredibly short of temper) and yet so unable to remember that other people are no more constant than I. The guy who cuts me off in traffic is no more permanently defined by his moment of selfishness and impatience than I am by mine when I occasionally do the same, and yet I immediately classify him by that action: "Jackass!" If my son learns any obscenities from me, he learns them in the back seat of the car when I'm driving.
These past couple of weeks, I was listening to Alexander Adams read A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Hearing Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley gush over each other in their small, quiet months together amidst the chaos of the world around them, I felt even more deeply in love with my wife, more grateful for her as a sanctuary. For a time. But a moment later, despite years of history, I am suddenly, disproportionately annoyed as hell by some inconsequential action. Knowing long before it comes just how the story is going to end (because how can it not? But maybe it won't. But how can it not?), I feel closer to my child and the undeserved luck of his healthy birth. But still, I'll snap at him all day long for small irritations. Why?
I also watched God Bless America this week, a mediocre movie that is just as sensationalistic and dehumanizing as the the pop culture that it purports to criticize. While watching it, I thought, "But there are no people that deserve to die!" even while chiding myself that yes, there are some people that deserve to die. Not Kardashians, certainly, but maybe someone that would kidnap teenage girls, keep them captive for years, raping them over and over and over again, yes? Deserve to die? And yet human. With thoughts and feelings and history and circumstances.
I want very much to be a better man, but for some reason, there is no such thing as ever after.
Mr. Wallace, who not insignificantly decided to end his own life, points out that it is a choice to think of others as just as human as yourself, and yet, I can't understand why making that choice is so hard, and never gets easier, day in and day out. It's a choice that must be made again and again, ad infinitum, and so many times in any given day, it's easier, or at least more appealing, to choose dehumanization.
And why is it so much harder to make that choice while driving, or while tediously working one's way through the grocery store?
I don't want to hate you. I really don't. But sometimes, I kind of do.
These past couple of weeks, I was listening to Alexander Adams read A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Hearing Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley gush over each other in their small, quiet months together amidst the chaos of the world around them, I felt even more deeply in love with my wife, more grateful for her as a sanctuary. For a time. But a moment later, despite years of history, I am suddenly, disproportionately annoyed as hell by some inconsequential action. Knowing long before it comes just how the story is going to end (because how can it not? But maybe it won't. But how can it not?), I feel closer to my child and the undeserved luck of his healthy birth. But still, I'll snap at him all day long for small irritations. Why?
I also watched God Bless America this week, a mediocre movie that is just as sensationalistic and dehumanizing as the the pop culture that it purports to criticize. While watching it, I thought, "But there are no people that deserve to die!" even while chiding myself that yes, there are some people that deserve to die. Not Kardashians, certainly, but maybe someone that would kidnap teenage girls, keep them captive for years, raping them over and over and over again, yes? Deserve to die? And yet human. With thoughts and feelings and history and circumstances.
I want very much to be a better man, but for some reason, there is no such thing as ever after.
Mr. Wallace, who not insignificantly decided to end his own life, points out that it is a choice to think of others as just as human as yourself, and yet, I can't understand why making that choice is so hard, and never gets easier, day in and day out. It's a choice that must be made again and again, ad infinitum, and so many times in any given day, it's easier, or at least more appealing, to choose dehumanization.
And why is it so much harder to make that choice while driving, or while tediously working one's way through the grocery store?
I don't want to hate you. I really don't. But sometimes, I kind of do.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Again with the Bike
After finally figuring out that I can avoid most of the trouble with exploding inner tubes by deflating the tires a bit before storing them in the garage or shed during the hottest months of the year, I thought, I hoped, that I was done with spending hours each week repairing bikes. Alas, I was wrong. We are now about two-and-a-half months into the school year, and we've only ridden our bikes to school a half-dozen times. I'm beginning to take it personally.
Once the exploding tires were resolved, the chain on Thumper's bike began falling off with surprising regularity. A neighbor carried it home for him when he was riding it in the afternoon. I put it back on. It fell off on the way to school the next day. I put it back on, put my foot against the frame, and pulled the rear wheel back as far as I could before tightening the nuts. It fell off again, at the exact same point in our route to school. The kids at the bus stop across the street must've wondered why we liked to stop at that spot and abandon his bike every day.
I got serious. I put the chain back on and used what I thought was an impressive combination of a lever and my body weight to pull it so tight that when I twanged it, it seemed to have no slack at all. It immediately fell off again the next morning. I looked up techniques for shortening a bicycle chain, then threw up my hands and abandoned the second-hand Goodwill bike for a brand-new, straight-from-the-retail-store bike. The next morning, the front tire was flat.
So I gave up for a couple of weeks, then spent part of the afternoon yesterday using a bucket of water to find the pinhole leak in the inner tube and patching it up. The lining on the rim that covers the ends of the spokes was askew, accounting for the hole, so I straightened it out and put everything back together. This morning, the tire was still properly inflated, so we headed out with hope in our hearts to finally ride our bikes to school again. Less than a quarter-mile later, the chain had fallen off.
I honestly don't believe that I or my father spent any significant amount of time or money repairing or maintaining my bike when I was a kid. I don't get it. Am I doing something wrong? Is he doing something wrong? It's not possible to pedal incorrectly, is it? Maybe he has superhuman strength that no ordinary bike chain can withstand.
I told him I'd fix it today, and I'll give it my best, but I can understand why his faith is shakeable. He hung his head sadly and said, "Maybe I just can't have a bike." No sir! I refuse to accept that! I WILL fix that bike if I have to buy a welder's torch and mask to do it! I am Captain Picard, and the line must be drawn here! This far and no farther!
Once the exploding tires were resolved, the chain on Thumper's bike began falling off with surprising regularity. A neighbor carried it home for him when he was riding it in the afternoon. I put it back on. It fell off on the way to school the next day. I put it back on, put my foot against the frame, and pulled the rear wheel back as far as I could before tightening the nuts. It fell off again, at the exact same point in our route to school. The kids at the bus stop across the street must've wondered why we liked to stop at that spot and abandon his bike every day.
I got serious. I put the chain back on and used what I thought was an impressive combination of a lever and my body weight to pull it so tight that when I twanged it, it seemed to have no slack at all. It immediately fell off again the next morning. I looked up techniques for shortening a bicycle chain, then threw up my hands and abandoned the second-hand Goodwill bike for a brand-new, straight-from-the-retail-store bike. The next morning, the front tire was flat.
So I gave up for a couple of weeks, then spent part of the afternoon yesterday using a bucket of water to find the pinhole leak in the inner tube and patching it up. The lining on the rim that covers the ends of the spokes was askew, accounting for the hole, so I straightened it out and put everything back together. This morning, the tire was still properly inflated, so we headed out with hope in our hearts to finally ride our bikes to school again. Less than a quarter-mile later, the chain had fallen off.
I honestly don't believe that I or my father spent any significant amount of time or money repairing or maintaining my bike when I was a kid. I don't get it. Am I doing something wrong? Is he doing something wrong? It's not possible to pedal incorrectly, is it? Maybe he has superhuman strength that no ordinary bike chain can withstand.
I told him I'd fix it today, and I'll give it my best, but I can understand why his faith is shakeable. He hung his head sadly and said, "Maybe I just can't have a bike." No sir! I refuse to accept that! I WILL fix that bike if I have to buy a welder's torch and mask to do it! I am Captain Picard, and the line must be drawn here! This far and no farther!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
The Nail in the Coffin
My brother and his wife had a bad experience with an airline recently. They flew to Montana for a friend's wedding and had a wonderful time. Then, the Facebook Status Updates began:
First: "I am a slow learner, I guess, and have to be presented with the same lesson again and again at times, before it sticks. Well, this time I've got it, and here it is:
Delta is a terrible airline. NEVER fly Delta.
Burned into my mind, now. Thanks."
Then: "When I fly Southwest, nothing goes wrong.
When I fly American and something goes wrong, they make things right in some way.
When I fly Delta and something goes wrong, they make me pissed."
And then (THE NEXT DAY): "is back at the gate in Salt Lake. We were already behind, because our flight attendant was delayed. Then, we taxied out about 25 yards, before returning to the gate for maintenance.
Now, we sit."
So of course they eventually made it home. What does any of this have to do with me? Nothing really until we get to yesterday, when I dropped Thumper off at their house for a sleepover. Aerie was out of town, and they kindly agreed to take care of the boy so that I could keep my shift at the big Dance Pop/Pop Rock show. There are precious few opportunities for ushering work over the summer, so I was grateful for the chance to earn a paycheck.
Still no tie-in to Delta, I know. Stick with me.
As I was driving to their house to drop Thumper off, I touched my face and realized: I hadn't shaved. The grooming standards for ushers aren't very strict, but I generally try to show up with a clean, or semi-clean, shave. So I asked if I could borrow a disposable razor from my brother. What I got was an unused, individually wrapped disposable razor, complete with a tiny pouch of shave gel. It came, SWSIL ("Social Worker Sister-in-Law") told me, from a complimentary travel toiletries pack that Delta gave them to compensate for the fact that their flight was canceled for mechanical problems. I was grateful to have it and hurried off to the arena in time to get semi-close free parking, which is so much better than distant free parking.
Still early enough that I had time for a shave before clocking in, I busted out my cello-wrapped pack. I tore it open, applied the gel, which wouldn't lather up, and dragged the razor across my cheek. I was stunned. I talked, grumbled, and cursed to myself in the empty bathroom. The razor simply would not cut. After nearly 10 minutes of toe-curling pain, I had reduced the stubble on my face almost not at all. I may have done better if I'd tried to shave with a plastic knife from one of the concession stands.
When I exited the bathroom, I was facing a promotional stand from one of the tour's sponsors, a major brand of women's razor. Would that they had samples, but alas, they did not. I ain't too proud to shave with a girly razor.
So there you go. When Delta cancels your flight due to mechanical problems, stranding you overnight, and then delays your next day's flight, first because a flight attendant is late and then because of a "maintenance issue," they make it up to you by offering you the least effective and most painful shaving experience of your life. You're welcome!
First: "I am a slow learner, I guess, and have to be presented with the same lesson again and again at times, before it sticks. Well, this time I've got it, and here it is:
Delta is a terrible airline. NEVER fly Delta.
Burned into my mind, now. Thanks."
Then: "When I fly Southwest, nothing goes wrong.
When I fly American and something goes wrong, they make things right in some way.
When I fly Delta and something goes wrong, they make me pissed."
And then (THE NEXT DAY): "is back at the gate in Salt Lake. We were already behind, because our flight attendant was delayed. Then, we taxied out about 25 yards, before returning to the gate for maintenance.
Now, we sit."
So of course they eventually made it home. What does any of this have to do with me? Nothing really until we get to yesterday, when I dropped Thumper off at their house for a sleepover. Aerie was out of town, and they kindly agreed to take care of the boy so that I could keep my shift at the big Dance Pop/Pop Rock show. There are precious few opportunities for ushering work over the summer, so I was grateful for the chance to earn a paycheck.
Still no tie-in to Delta, I know. Stick with me.
As I was driving to their house to drop Thumper off, I touched my face and realized: I hadn't shaved. The grooming standards for ushers aren't very strict, but I generally try to show up with a clean, or semi-clean, shave. So I asked if I could borrow a disposable razor from my brother. What I got was an unused, individually wrapped disposable razor, complete with a tiny pouch of shave gel. It came, SWSIL ("Social Worker Sister-in-Law") told me, from a complimentary travel toiletries pack that Delta gave them to compensate for the fact that their flight was canceled for mechanical problems. I was grateful to have it and hurried off to the arena in time to get semi-close free parking, which is so much better than distant free parking.
Still early enough that I had time for a shave before clocking in, I busted out my cello-wrapped pack. I tore it open, applied the gel, which wouldn't lather up, and dragged the razor across my cheek. I was stunned. I talked, grumbled, and cursed to myself in the empty bathroom. The razor simply would not cut. After nearly 10 minutes of toe-curling pain, I had reduced the stubble on my face almost not at all. I may have done better if I'd tried to shave with a plastic knife from one of the concession stands.
When I exited the bathroom, I was facing a promotional stand from one of the tour's sponsors, a major brand of women's razor. Would that they had samples, but alas, they did not. I ain't too proud to shave with a girly razor.
So there you go. When Delta cancels your flight due to mechanical problems, stranding you overnight, and then delays your next day's flight, first because a flight attendant is late and then because of a "maintenance issue," they make it up to you by offering you the least effective and most painful shaving experience of your life. You're welcome!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
No One Expects the Feminist Inquisition!
Thumper and I are feeding the ducks at the pond near the playground. He notices a mom sitting on a park bench giving a baby wipe bath to a boy about his own age. He wanders over to chat while I keep throwing bread.
I glance over, and the mom is speaking animatedly. Thumper comes back over to me, wearing his angry face.
RODIUS: What's the matter, buddy?
THUMPER: She said I was "appropriate."
R: What did you say that was inappropriate?
T: I said maybe that boy didn't want to sit down.
R: Maybe you should let her worry about that boy and mind your own business.
T: OK. I think she's mean.
R: If she's mean, just stay away from her.
T: OK. I think she's mean. Maybe she's evil.
R: She's not evil, buddy.
We walk further along to the bridge and throw the rest of bread to the ducks. He's still mopey. When the bread's gone, he lays down and says he wants to go home. I pick him up, put him on my shoulders, and head towards the parking lot. The path takes us past the bench, where the woman is still wiping down her kid. Maybe he fell in the pond or something, I don't know. I decide to ask her what happened.
RODIUS: Excuse me. Did something happen? With my son?
NUTJOB: He just started smart-mouthing me. When I told him that was inappropriate, he said his dad was over there, so I told him maybe he should go back over there before I tell his dad what he said.
R: What did he say?
N: He was smart-mouthing me and exhibiting male chauvinist behavior.
R: Well, what did he say, so I can correct him?
N: He was being a chauvinist.
R: He's three.
T: He's showing off the behavior you've shown him.
R: Lady, I'm a stay-at-home dad. I'm showing him non-traditional gender roles. I don't think I'm a chauvinist.
THUMPER: Hey, Dad! Is she mean? Dad? Dad? Is she evil and mean? Dad? Is she?
N: Well he's calling me names right now, and you're not correcting him.
R: Thinking to myself, "I'm not entirely sure he's wrong..." I say nothing.
N: Asshole!
I decide this is a fruitless endeavor and walk on. We go to the bathroom. When we're walking out, she's walking past.
NUTJOB: Asshole! Have a nice day, asshole!
RODIUS: You're the only one using words like that. You realize that don't you?
N: flips me the bird and walks away.
THUMPER: What did she say, Daddy?
R: She called me a name that's not very nice.
T: I think she's mean. I think if she's going to call you a "werdernerder," she should call herself a "werdernerder."
R: You're right.
T: She's mean.
R: Yes, she is.
I swear that I did not exaggerate, embellish, or omit in order to make myself look blameless. I really have no idea what I could have done differently.
Some days it's not worth leaving the house.
I glance over, and the mom is speaking animatedly. Thumper comes back over to me, wearing his angry face.
RODIUS: What's the matter, buddy?
THUMPER: She said I was "appropriate."
R: What did you say that was inappropriate?
T: I said maybe that boy didn't want to sit down.
R: Maybe you should let her worry about that boy and mind your own business.
T: OK. I think she's mean.
R: If she's mean, just stay away from her.
T: OK. I think she's mean. Maybe she's evil.
R: She's not evil, buddy.
We walk further along to the bridge and throw the rest of bread to the ducks. He's still mopey. When the bread's gone, he lays down and says he wants to go home. I pick him up, put him on my shoulders, and head towards the parking lot. The path takes us past the bench, where the woman is still wiping down her kid. Maybe he fell in the pond or something, I don't know. I decide to ask her what happened.
RODIUS: Excuse me. Did something happen? With my son?
NUTJOB: He just started smart-mouthing me. When I told him that was inappropriate, he said his dad was over there, so I told him maybe he should go back over there before I tell his dad what he said.
R: What did he say?
N: He was smart-mouthing me and exhibiting male chauvinist behavior.
R: Well, what did he say, so I can correct him?
N: He was being a chauvinist.
R: He's three.
T: He's showing off the behavior you've shown him.
R: Lady, I'm a stay-at-home dad. I'm showing him non-traditional gender roles. I don't think I'm a chauvinist.
THUMPER: Hey, Dad! Is she mean? Dad? Dad? Is she evil and mean? Dad? Is she?
N: Well he's calling me names right now, and you're not correcting him.
R: Thinking to myself, "I'm not entirely sure he's wrong..." I say nothing.
N: Asshole!
I decide this is a fruitless endeavor and walk on. We go to the bathroom. When we're walking out, she's walking past.
NUTJOB: Asshole! Have a nice day, asshole!
RODIUS: You're the only one using words like that. You realize that don't you?
N: flips me the bird and walks away.
THUMPER: What did she say, Daddy?
R: She called me a name that's not very nice.
T: I think she's mean. I think if she's going to call you a "werdernerder," she should call herself a "werdernerder."
R: You're right.
T: She's mean.
R: Yes, she is.
I swear that I did not exaggerate, embellish, or omit in order to make myself look blameless. I really have no idea what I could have done differently.
Some days it's not worth leaving the house.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Media Contact
Maybe I'm not the best choice for this role, but as the current administrator of my dads's group, I not only schedule the weekly play dates and approve new members, I'm also the contact for media inquiries. In January, I was contacted by a freelance writer who was working on an article for a major, national women's magazine. He's made it pretty clear from the beginning that he had already written the article and was mostly looking for quotes from members of the group that he could plug into the article to support the conclusion he'd already come to before talking to any of us. As of today, his article has now been returned to him for final edits, and he wants a couple of more dads to talk to for about 10 minutes tomorrow to cull a few more quotes, I suppose.
In May, the photo editor for said magazine contacted me to schedule a photo shoot with our group. She's waffled on dates, saying maybe this week, maybe next week, maybe the week after that to send a hired photographer to shoot us. I suggested she take advantage of the talents of one of our members, who has shot some excellent photos, some of which he took at past play dates. She was non-committal, until today, finally saying she wanted him to take more photos of us at upcoming play dates. She stressed that it's important to her magazine to represent diversity in their photo shoots, especially those involving real people, which struck me as manipulating reality to make it fit some idealized version, true reality be damned.
After 5 months of emails with these two journalistic professionals who won't make a decision and stick with it, I got a little fed up. So I sent the following email to my group today to promote the Wednesday play date, which will be taking place at the business of one of our members:
And thus you see why maybe I'm not the best choice for media contact.
In May, the photo editor for said magazine contacted me to schedule a photo shoot with our group. She's waffled on dates, saying maybe this week, maybe next week, maybe the week after that to send a hired photographer to shoot us. I suggested she take advantage of the talents of one of our members, who has shot some excellent photos, some of which he took at past play dates. She was non-committal, until today, finally saying she wanted him to take more photos of us at upcoming play dates. She stressed that it's important to her magazine to represent diversity in their photo shoots, especially those involving real people, which struck me as manipulating reality to make it fit some idealized version, true reality be damned.
After 5 months of emails with these two journalistic professionals who won't make a decision and stick with it, I got a little fed up. So I sent the following email to my group today to promote the Wednesday play date, which will be taking place at the business of one of our members:
First, let me say that the rest of this message is tongue-in-cheek, and I don't give a rat's ass about satisfying [national women's magazine], since I'm sure the article will not in the least represent us (or at least me) and what it means (to me) to be a stay-at-home dad. I'm sure that the author wrote the article before speaking to any of us, and the gist of it will be that "silly, incompetent dads think they can be moms! Isn't that cute?"
That said, I would really appreciate it if we could turn out in large numbers for Wednesday's play date this week. First, it will be great to see what our own [Dad #1] and his family have come up with as a business idea and to throw our support behind it. It sounds unique, and a lot of fun, and priced more than reasonably, compared to other indoor play spaces. Second, I'd like to see [Dad #2] get national exposure as a photographer, too, if that's also what he wants. So let's come together and support these two dads and see what good can come of this mess for them. Maybe [Dad #2] can get some shots of us in front of a sign or a logo, or a web address on Wednesday.
I suggested to [national women's magazine]'s photo editor from the beginning that she take advantage of [Dad #2]'s talents, but she hemmed, hawed, delayed, and was generally a giant pain in the ass about picking a date to send a hired photographer to. Now she's come full circle and wants [Dad #2] to shoot us Wednesday at All Things Kids, and presumably any other play dates we turn up to over the next few days. Or weeks. Or whatever. I have no idea when they plan to actually pull the trigger on this project and publish the damn article already. It can't be soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.
What she seems most concerned about is "diversity," though she never specifically defined what she meant by that. They like their photo shoots to be diverse, "especially of real people," even if reality is semi-homogeneous. I presume she means it in the "racial diversity" sense, but she didn't specify, so if you're coming on Wednesday, please come at your most diverse. If [Dad #3] shows up, we'll have "white man with blond kids" covered, though that beard isn't quite "Middle America" enough. [Kid #1] and [Kid #2] should definitely come, but maybe it would best if their mom brought them and [Dad #4] stayed home. [Dad #5] and [Dad #6] certainly should be there, and if anybody has any black friends with kids that they can convince to take the morning off from work, I'd appreciate it. As the only woman in the group, [Mom #1], you better show up, or I'm kicking you out, and whichever dad it was that had something about a "partner" in his bio, I'm counting on you, too. [Dad #7] should come, but only as a real person and not as an actor. As the definitive "blue-eyed devil," I'm not sure I should be in any of the pictures, but [Thumper] and I will be there to check out [Dad #1]'s ultra-cool imported European toys. [Dad #2], please make sure to get some self-portraits with the mohawk and the baby strapped to your chest. I can only hope this will be one of the weeks that your hair is blue or some other unnatural color.
Anyway, please come. It's $5 per kid, unless we show up in a group of 10 or more kids, which will prompt [Dad #1] to give us a 20% discount, or $4 per kid. If we can't be racially diverse, maybe we can be, I don't know, politically diverse? If [Dad #8] and [Dad #1] are in the same room with the rest of us, we'll pretty much have the spectrum covered. Religiously diverse? Fashionably diverse? Or diverse heights and weights? Shoe sizes?
That said, I would really appreciate it if we could turn out in large numbers for Wednesday's play date this week. First, it will be great to see what our own [Dad #1] and his family have come up with as a business idea and to throw our support behind it. It sounds unique, and a lot of fun, and priced more than reasonably, compared to other indoor play spaces. Second, I'd like to see [Dad #2] get national exposure as a photographer, too, if that's also what he wants. So let's come together and support these two dads and see what good can come of this mess for them. Maybe [Dad #2] can get some shots of us in front of a sign or a logo, or a web address on Wednesday.
I suggested to [national women's magazine]'s photo editor from the beginning that she take advantage of [Dad #2]'s talents, but she hemmed, hawed, delayed, and was generally a giant pain in the ass about picking a date to send a hired photographer to. Now she's come full circle and wants [Dad #2] to shoot us Wednesday at All Things Kids, and presumably any other play dates we turn up to over the next few days. Or weeks. Or whatever. I have no idea when they plan to actually pull the trigger on this project and publish the damn article already. It can't be soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.
What she seems most concerned about is "diversity," though she never specifically defined what she meant by that. They like their photo shoots to be diverse, "especially of real people," even if reality is semi-homogeneous. I presume she means it in the "racial diversity" sense, but she didn't specify, so if you're coming on Wednesday, please come at your most diverse. If [Dad #3] shows up, we'll have "white man with blond kids" covered, though that beard isn't quite "Middle America" enough. [Kid #1] and [Kid #2] should definitely come, but maybe it would best if their mom brought them and [Dad #4] stayed home. [Dad #5] and [Dad #6] certainly should be there, and if anybody has any black friends with kids that they can convince to take the morning off from work, I'd appreciate it. As the only woman in the group, [Mom #1], you better show up, or I'm kicking you out, and whichever dad it was that had something about a "partner" in his bio, I'm counting on you, too. [Dad #7] should come, but only as a real person and not as an actor. As the definitive "blue-eyed devil," I'm not sure I should be in any of the pictures, but [Thumper] and I will be there to check out [Dad #1]'s ultra-cool imported European toys. [Dad #2], please make sure to get some self-portraits with the mohawk and the baby strapped to your chest. I can only hope this will be one of the weeks that your hair is blue or some other unnatural color.
Anyway, please come. It's $5 per kid, unless we show up in a group of 10 or more kids, which will prompt [Dad #1] to give us a 20% discount, or $4 per kid. If we can't be racially diverse, maybe we can be, I don't know, politically diverse? If [Dad #8] and [Dad #1] are in the same room with the rest of us, we'll pretty much have the spectrum covered. Religiously diverse? Fashionably diverse? Or diverse heights and weights? Shoe sizes?
And thus you see why maybe I'm not the best choice for media contact.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
My Biggest Problem
I cannot stop yelling at my kid. Is this normal for parents of almost-four-year-olds? It's my biggest daily struggle. I often think that I was well-suited to the daily care-taking of an infant, but a three-year-old is outside of my expertise. Somewhere I picked up the idea that I shouldn't have to repeat myself so much, that he should just listen to me and behave the first, or second, or third time that I say something. I'm not sure why I think this is true. Parents for a millennium have bemoaned the inability of children to listen or pay attention or follow instructions. Somehow I thought I'd be better at this.
So he sneezes full in the face of a pregnant chick, and I snap at him because, really? The whole "Vampire Sneeze" thing that we've discussed ad nauseum and that I remind him of daily, multiple times? And he says, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Like, "Let it go already!" He's gonna sneeze in a pregnant chick's face and then give me attitude about it, like I'm being a dick for reminding him to cover and telling him to go apologize? Really?
And of course I immediately feel guilty every time I lose my cool. My mother told me when I was a kid that being a parent was all about guilt, but, I don't know, I thought I'd be better at this. I remember watching Bill Cosby's stand-up routine about "Come here. Come here. Come HERE. Here! Here! Here!" and thinking, "That's funny." It's not so funny anymore. The phrases I repeat more than three times in a row, several times a day, day after day, include, "don't touch," "get down," "eat your veggies," "get your finger out of your nose," and maybe a hundred others. I try not to think of each of those as a knife in my back or a middle finger in my face, but yeah, I kind of do, really.
So I know, intellectually, that he's a kid, he's three, I can't really change his behavior except in a strictly long-term sort of way. I know that in his purely id-driven three-year-old state, he does not think, remember, or judge before acting or reacting to immediate stimuli. I get it. But man, I just told him, 30 seconds ago, not to do what he is currently doing. While he looks right at me. With that look on his face.
How is it that anybody ever has more than one kid?
So he sneezes full in the face of a pregnant chick, and I snap at him because, really? The whole "Vampire Sneeze" thing that we've discussed ad nauseum and that I remind him of daily, multiple times? And he says, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Like, "Let it go already!" He's gonna sneeze in a pregnant chick's face and then give me attitude about it, like I'm being a dick for reminding him to cover and telling him to go apologize? Really?
And of course I immediately feel guilty every time I lose my cool. My mother told me when I was a kid that being a parent was all about guilt, but, I don't know, I thought I'd be better at this. I remember watching Bill Cosby's stand-up routine about "Come here. Come here. Come HERE. Here! Here! Here!" and thinking, "That's funny." It's not so funny anymore. The phrases I repeat more than three times in a row, several times a day, day after day, include, "don't touch," "get down," "eat your veggies," "get your finger out of your nose," and maybe a hundred others. I try not to think of each of those as a knife in my back or a middle finger in my face, but yeah, I kind of do, really.
So I know, intellectually, that he's a kid, he's three, I can't really change his behavior except in a strictly long-term sort of way. I know that in his purely id-driven three-year-old state, he does not think, remember, or judge before acting or reacting to immediate stimuli. I get it. But man, I just told him, 30 seconds ago, not to do what he is currently doing. While he looks right at me. With that look on his face.
How is it that anybody ever has more than one kid?
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Jaded
One of my long-term goals for ushering is never to become bitter and cynical as so many long-time ushers seem to become. They expect the worst of people and are given no end of opportunities to see their expectations met. I do my best to remember that for every angry, demanding, selfish, or entitled patron that I encounter, I meet at least a couple who are friendly, kind, funny, and generous, and there are of course hundreds that come and go without ever drawing my attention at all.
While eating my breakfast before heading to work this morning, I read some old blog entries about ushering, including this one, a meditation on the sentiment, the pride and the poignancy, on display at high school graduations.
Today, though, was not one of those days.
I know that for so many of the families in attendance, graduation is the culmination of years of work, both for them and for their graduates. I know that parents of graduates often feel quite literally like participants in these events. In fact, some of our signage outside the building directs "participants" one way and "public" another; when I'm outside helping get people to the proper spots, I always call them instead "graduates and faculty" while pointing one way and "family and friends" while pointing the other, because mothers especially, in my experience, truly believe themselves to be participants in this triumphant moment.
Still, it's amazing to me to see how many family members will behave as if their child's graduation entitles them to specific benefits that other families, celebrating the exact same achievement by their own children, are not entitled to. People set up tripods for their video cameras on stairways and landings, blocking other people's views and access to whole rows of seating. One thoughtful young man once even set up his tripod across three mobility-impaired seats, which are in high demand for grandparents at these events. Some people will "save" three and four rows of seating, upwards of 40 individual seats, for their friends and family who are "parking the car" when other families who are here, now, with only minutes before the start of the ceremony, have nowhere to sit. Entire families fill the mobility-impaired seating sections, bristling indignantly at the suggestion that one of their party sit with grandma while the rest sit in regular seats a dozen feet or so away from grandma so that another family's grandma, who is also in a wheelchair, may take advantage of the mobility-impaired seating sections as well.
Trying my best to resolve such a conflict today, I told the Hatfields and the McCoys, who appeared on the verge of coming to blows over a half-dozen seats they both wanted to sit in, that "we're all here for the same reason. We're all part of the [insert school's name] family; let's all behave in a kind, courteous, and loving way toward each other." Two people involved in the conflict actually snorted in derision at my suggestion.
I called the police to one of our vendor's concession stands today, too, because a woman, dressed to the nines and there presumably to show her pride and to celebrate the achievement of a close friend or family member suddenly decided that this place and this time were the appropriate moment to engage in a dispute with that vendor over payroll money she felt she was owed; presumably she had worked for or with that vendor at some previous event. She was screaming with such force and gesticulating so vehemently at the vendor that I was afraid she was about to start throwing punches. When I approached, she turned her venom on me without missing a beat. The spittle was flying. The police were called. The vendor was visibly shaken. I thought, how delightful it is that this patron has stolen this day from the graduate she was there to honor, turned the attention from the graduate to herself and even involved the police.
So, as much as I love ushering, and as much fun as I have, and as much gratification as I get from helping people enjoy our events and helping them in other ways whenever I can, sometimes I can't help walking away feeling that people, in the broadest, most general terms, suck.
While eating my breakfast before heading to work this morning, I read some old blog entries about ushering, including this one, a meditation on the sentiment, the pride and the poignancy, on display at high school graduations.
Today, though, was not one of those days.
I know that for so many of the families in attendance, graduation is the culmination of years of work, both for them and for their graduates. I know that parents of graduates often feel quite literally like participants in these events. In fact, some of our signage outside the building directs "participants" one way and "public" another; when I'm outside helping get people to the proper spots, I always call them instead "graduates and faculty" while pointing one way and "family and friends" while pointing the other, because mothers especially, in my experience, truly believe themselves to be participants in this triumphant moment.
Still, it's amazing to me to see how many family members will behave as if their child's graduation entitles them to specific benefits that other families, celebrating the exact same achievement by their own children, are not entitled to. People set up tripods for their video cameras on stairways and landings, blocking other people's views and access to whole rows of seating. One thoughtful young man once even set up his tripod across three mobility-impaired seats, which are in high demand for grandparents at these events. Some people will "save" three and four rows of seating, upwards of 40 individual seats, for their friends and family who are "parking the car" when other families who are here, now, with only minutes before the start of the ceremony, have nowhere to sit. Entire families fill the mobility-impaired seating sections, bristling indignantly at the suggestion that one of their party sit with grandma while the rest sit in regular seats a dozen feet or so away from grandma so that another family's grandma, who is also in a wheelchair, may take advantage of the mobility-impaired seating sections as well.
Trying my best to resolve such a conflict today, I told the Hatfields and the McCoys, who appeared on the verge of coming to blows over a half-dozen seats they both wanted to sit in, that "we're all here for the same reason. We're all part of the [insert school's name] family; let's all behave in a kind, courteous, and loving way toward each other." Two people involved in the conflict actually snorted in derision at my suggestion.
I called the police to one of our vendor's concession stands today, too, because a woman, dressed to the nines and there presumably to show her pride and to celebrate the achievement of a close friend or family member suddenly decided that this place and this time were the appropriate moment to engage in a dispute with that vendor over payroll money she felt she was owed; presumably she had worked for or with that vendor at some previous event. She was screaming with such force and gesticulating so vehemently at the vendor that I was afraid she was about to start throwing punches. When I approached, she turned her venom on me without missing a beat. The spittle was flying. The police were called. The vendor was visibly shaken. I thought, how delightful it is that this patron has stolen this day from the graduate she was there to honor, turned the attention from the graduate to herself and even involved the police.
So, as much as I love ushering, and as much fun as I have, and as much gratification as I get from helping people enjoy our events and helping them in other ways whenever I can, sometimes I can't help walking away feeling that people, in the broadest, most general terms, suck.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Draggin'
My weight loss has stalled, my running performance has plateaued, my knee refuses to heal, my lungs are full of glue, and my motivation is waning. I'm 2 days away from Warrior Dash, and there's no way in hell I'm going to meet my overly-ambitious 32-minute goal. My past three workouts have been a disaster, with my energy level in the toilet (maybe I should try going to bed before midnight) and my heart rate inexplicably at a surprisingly high 169 today, which is way outside of what the chart on the gym wall says it should be at the ripe old age of nearly 40. I don't know if the Paleo Diet is letting me down, or if I'm not doing it right, eating too many fruits and not enough vegetables, or if Paleo's a crock and I should chow down on some pasta tomorrow night. It has not, as I thought it might, made a difference with my lungs or with my skin. My knee still hurts and never heals because I keep running on it. When I try to remember my Chi Running fundamentals, my knee bothers me less, but still, it hurts during and after a run.
Maybe I need to start riding my bike more instead.
Oh yeah, I did remember that this summer (July specifically) will mark my 5-year anniversary of quitting smoking, which is a year longer than I made it the previous time I quit smoking. Hooray, me!
Maybe I need to start riding my bike more instead.
Oh yeah, I did remember that this summer (July specifically) will mark my 5-year anniversary of quitting smoking, which is a year longer than I made it the previous time I quit smoking. Hooray, me!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Running on Empty, and with a Sore Knee
I ran the Austin American-Statesman Capitol 10K last Sunday, along with 23,000 other people. I thought, since I ran 1:01:44 at the Longhorn Run last year, and since I ran a 56:04 10K on the treadmill, that I would blow my best time for an official 10K out of the water, so when I posted a time just a little less than one minute faster than my Longhorn Run time, I was disappointed in myself. The official photographers of the event quickly posted their photos, searchable by bib number or name, and looking at the pictures of me, I felt old. And fat. And though I've been running and training with nary a sign of knee pain or other injuries, the week before the race, I twisted my knee playing soccer with Thumper and his best pal, and by the end of the race I was downright hobbling.
So I took the week after the race off from exercising to give my knee a chance to recover, and I thought about whether I'm really a runner. I became morose and maybe a little pissy, thinking that I'm not going to meet my fitness and weight loss goals and I'm a terrible father who yells at his kid too much and I haven't kept up with the 100 push ups and I haven't even started the 200 sit ups and there are no solutions to ongoing family problems and I'm constitutionally incapable of keeping a clean house and there's no possible way I'll meet my copywriting deadline and nobody loves me everybody hates me I think I'll go eat worms.
And then I picked up Thumper from preschool and the teacher gave me a daily report that was glowing about his social and verbal skills. And then I went to the gym, ran on a steeper incline with only a slightly slower time than my last 5K workout, and I'd only gained a pound over my last weigh in. Suddenly I don't feel quite like I've totally blown it, though I'm not sure what to do about the knee. And I still have to finish 40 more of those stupid product descriptions in the next 24 hours.
So I took the week after the race off from exercising to give my knee a chance to recover, and I thought about whether I'm really a runner. I became morose and maybe a little pissy, thinking that I'm not going to meet my fitness and weight loss goals and I'm a terrible father who yells at his kid too much and I haven't kept up with the 100 push ups and I haven't even started the 200 sit ups and there are no solutions to ongoing family problems and I'm constitutionally incapable of keeping a clean house and there's no possible way I'll meet my copywriting deadline and nobody loves me everybody hates me I think I'll go eat worms.
And then I picked up Thumper from preschool and the teacher gave me a daily report that was glowing about his social and verbal skills. And then I went to the gym, ran on a steeper incline with only a slightly slower time than my last 5K workout, and I'd only gained a pound over my last weigh in. Suddenly I don't feel quite like I've totally blown it, though I'm not sure what to do about the knee. And I still have to finish 40 more of those stupid product descriptions in the next 24 hours.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Blog
One post in nearly three months, and I'm wondering if I'm still a blogger. When I think about blogging, I don't have much more to say than what I've already said, except for anecdotes about Thumper that I've already put on Facebook in abbreviated form. When I think I might have something to say, I put it off because I have copy writing deadlines, or database deadlines, or I'm just tired and would rather stare at ridiculous episodes of Black Adder on Netflix for Wii.
Part of it is that I think the novelty and excitement I felt at becoming a parent and at being a stay-at-home dad has worn off. It's not that novel anymore. I have a routine; I feel more confident than I used to. I have friends; Thumper has friends; things are progressing, and there's not that much new. I'm used to being a SAHD; I'm used to being an usher; I'm used to being a copywriter. Telling stories about each of those things seems a little redundant now. The biggest challenge I have now, the one that occupies my mind most and is most ripe for exploration via blog post is my struggle dealing with the aggravation that comes from living with a three-year-old who constantly pushes the boundaries, constantly tests my patience, constantly challenges me not to yell. But writing about my regular failures to meet those challenges isn't exactly inspiring.
But one of the moms from one of my playgroups invited me to follow her blog, one of the moms that I admire because of her energy and positive attitude, despite the fact that she has 3X the kids (plus 2 dogs, a cat, and a snake) and a much fuller schedule than I do. It's one of the things I appreciate about my 3 different play groups: they surround me with parents who seem to be better at it than I am, inspiring me to try to be better at it myself. They're involved; they do crafts; and they don't yell (at least when I'm around). And reading her blog, I remembered that part of blogging is reminding myself of the good things, articulating the things that I love in fuller detail than a picture and a few words on Facebook allows.
Halloween and the 3 days preceding it were a blast, by the way. And did I mention, we ran into Kat Nash at Which Wich?
So, I don't know. I guess I'm still a blogger. But, gah, who has the time? I'm going to go play Bejeweled Blitz now...
Part of it is that I think the novelty and excitement I felt at becoming a parent and at being a stay-at-home dad has worn off. It's not that novel anymore. I have a routine; I feel more confident than I used to. I have friends; Thumper has friends; things are progressing, and there's not that much new. I'm used to being a SAHD; I'm used to being an usher; I'm used to being a copywriter. Telling stories about each of those things seems a little redundant now. The biggest challenge I have now, the one that occupies my mind most and is most ripe for exploration via blog post is my struggle dealing with the aggravation that comes from living with a three-year-old who constantly pushes the boundaries, constantly tests my patience, constantly challenges me not to yell. But writing about my regular failures to meet those challenges isn't exactly inspiring.
But one of the moms from one of my playgroups invited me to follow her blog, one of the moms that I admire because of her energy and positive attitude, despite the fact that she has 3X the kids (plus 2 dogs, a cat, and a snake) and a much fuller schedule than I do. It's one of the things I appreciate about my 3 different play groups: they surround me with parents who seem to be better at it than I am, inspiring me to try to be better at it myself. They're involved; they do crafts; and they don't yell (at least when I'm around). And reading her blog, I remembered that part of blogging is reminding myself of the good things, articulating the things that I love in fuller detail than a picture and a few words on Facebook allows.
Halloween and the 3 days preceding it were a blast, by the way. And did I mention, we ran into Kat Nash at Which Wich?
So, I don't know. I guess I'm still a blogger. But, gah, who has the time? I'm going to go play Bejeweled Blitz now...
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Stuff and Things
Wow, it's been a month since I posted, and I left a vague reference to a curse word up as my lead title all this time. For shame.
Things are tough over here, but not absolutely horrible. I've not been to the gym, until today, for nearly a month. I've also been eating crap and drinking excessively. Coincidentally, I've gained 10 pounds. Yay!
Speaking of going to the gym today, it was almost an hour and a half excursion. I began to feel like Odysseus attempting to return home. The surprising rainfall amounts from (I think; I'm too lazy to look it up and confirm) Tropical Storm Hermine as she moved up from the Gulf of Mexico and across Central Texas flooded several roads, leaving our local YMCA completely inaccessible. We approached from one direction; the road was blocked. We took the long way 'round to approach it from the other direction; the road was blocked. So we chucked it in and went to the other not-so-local Y. I hope the building didn't get flooded; the boy starts a gymnastics class there next week.
A month off, and by the way, I could barely run for 10 minutes, let alone a full hour. I best get my act together if I'm going to run in Warrior Dash in November.
So yeah, I'm a fat lazy bastard. I'm way behind on a copywriting project. Like waaaayyyyyy behind. My wife is working most of the time and still under coal-to-diamond pressure to solve unsolvable problems for her family, with the people she's trying to help not always being so nice to her. I'm hosting play dates here tomorrow and Friday, and I haven't finished cleaning my house.
Hmm. What else? Oh yeah, I got peed on by one cat shoving him into a cat carrier this morning and scratched by the other. One has a chronic UTI problem that's getting beyond old and more than expensive. The other is apparently allergic to his own teeth and has a rare viral infection that gives him the permanent runs. I spent $375 to maybe, or maybe not, find solutions to these problems. I think I'll do the Happy Happy Joy Joy dance.
Oh yeah, and then, what with my wife working 14-hour days and burning out her brain cells and feeling guilty about it, and then burning out her brain cells again the next day and feeling guilty about it, we decided to just go ahead and close the door on the second child thing and cut out the stress of the whole "Now? Later? How much later, 'cause we ain't getting younger? Can we afford it? How much bodily damage will a second pregnancy do?" conundrum. Hasn't seemed to reduce the stress much, but it has managed to make me pretty sad. Maybe adoption? Probably not. Doesn't feel like the right thing to me. But little babies sure is cute...
And so then bitching about it makes me feel like I should say: I know we're blessed. The boy is a marvel, a wonder, a joy. He held court at the vet's office today, cracking up staff and customers alike. But also: even that, I mean, Lord, he just. Never. Stops. Talking. I can't think straight talking to the vet about this med for that cat, and that med for that cat, and how often and how much because he's chattering non-stop and asking questions peppered with "Why?" every 10 or so words and climbing on the stool when I told him not to because he'll tip it over and hurt himself and then he almost tips it over and I can just see the chipped teeth and split chin and I snap at him and the vet looks all uncomfortable and I'm feeling guilty again.
Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Blessed. Wonderful. Lucky. And we are. But man. So much for not complaining.
Things are tough over here, but not absolutely horrible. I've not been to the gym, until today, for nearly a month. I've also been eating crap and drinking excessively. Coincidentally, I've gained 10 pounds. Yay!
Speaking of going to the gym today, it was almost an hour and a half excursion. I began to feel like Odysseus attempting to return home. The surprising rainfall amounts from (I think; I'm too lazy to look it up and confirm) Tropical Storm Hermine as she moved up from the Gulf of Mexico and across Central Texas flooded several roads, leaving our local YMCA completely inaccessible. We approached from one direction; the road was blocked. We took the long way 'round to approach it from the other direction; the road was blocked. So we chucked it in and went to the other not-so-local Y. I hope the building didn't get flooded; the boy starts a gymnastics class there next week.
A month off, and by the way, I could barely run for 10 minutes, let alone a full hour. I best get my act together if I'm going to run in Warrior Dash in November.
So yeah, I'm a fat lazy bastard. I'm way behind on a copywriting project. Like waaaayyyyyy behind. My wife is working most of the time and still under coal-to-diamond pressure to solve unsolvable problems for her family, with the people she's trying to help not always being so nice to her. I'm hosting play dates here tomorrow and Friday, and I haven't finished cleaning my house.
Hmm. What else? Oh yeah, I got peed on by one cat shoving him into a cat carrier this morning and scratched by the other. One has a chronic UTI problem that's getting beyond old and more than expensive. The other is apparently allergic to his own teeth and has a rare viral infection that gives him the permanent runs. I spent $375 to maybe, or maybe not, find solutions to these problems. I think I'll do the Happy Happy Joy Joy dance.
Oh yeah, and then, what with my wife working 14-hour days and burning out her brain cells and feeling guilty about it, and then burning out her brain cells again the next day and feeling guilty about it, we decided to just go ahead and close the door on the second child thing and cut out the stress of the whole "Now? Later? How much later, 'cause we ain't getting younger? Can we afford it? How much bodily damage will a second pregnancy do?" conundrum. Hasn't seemed to reduce the stress much, but it has managed to make me pretty sad. Maybe adoption? Probably not. Doesn't feel like the right thing to me. But little babies sure is cute...
And so then bitching about it makes me feel like I should say: I know we're blessed. The boy is a marvel, a wonder, a joy. He held court at the vet's office today, cracking up staff and customers alike. But also: even that, I mean, Lord, he just. Never. Stops. Talking. I can't think straight talking to the vet about this med for that cat, and that med for that cat, and how often and how much because he's chattering non-stop and asking questions peppered with "Why?" every 10 or so words and climbing on the stool when I told him not to because he'll tip it over and hurt himself and then he almost tips it over and I can just see the chipped teeth and split chin and I snap at him and the vet looks all uncomfortable and I'm feeling guilty again.
Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Blessed. Wonderful. Lucky. And we are. But man. So much for not complaining.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
OMFG
I thought I didn't want to let this space become a place where I complain about my life, but I just don't know how to process all of this. I thought, when we got married, the "I'll always love you, no matter what" part would get us through anything, and I guess it has, and it will, but it isn't making it easier. There is no one I can talk to about all of the stress that we, our little family unit, is under right now, and I should be worried about who will see this and what I'll do if the wrong people see it and take it badly, but...
FFFUUU...!!!
No, that didn't really help.
And the Rage Thread, by the way, is a meme I wouldn't know anything about if my hip, just-graduated-from-high-school nephew didn't reference it on Facebook all the time. Tip o' the hat to ya, Penguin Man.
What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah. At the exact moment that the pressure exerted on my wife in her professional life is increasing, for a variety of reasons, and the staff that she has available to her to help her deal with that pressure is decreasing, for a variety of reasons, the demands placed upon her by her extended family are also increasing. She is the go-to chick when it comes to getting problems solved, only this time, the problems are starting to look pretty damn near unsolvable. Yet solve them she must, while navigating the minefield of family history and catering to the particular needs and sensitivities of each individual party, and especially one particularly needy and sensitive party, all while still working 12 hours a day and not letting her son, or her husband, feel the burden of her stress or her absence.
And I'm supposed to help her. What I want to do to help her is to unleash the venom of 18 years of suppressed anger on certain parties, and especially one party in particular, but I know that it wouldn't really help, and I know that Aerie would definitely not appreciate it, so I keep on suppressing it. Come to think of it, she probably isn't going to appreciate this post, either, but...
FFFUUU...!!!
She's had enough. More than enough. And I've had enough. And more keeps coming, with no end in sight.
FFFUUU...!!!
No, that didn't really help.
And the Rage Thread, by the way, is a meme I wouldn't know anything about if my hip, just-graduated-from-high-school nephew didn't reference it on Facebook all the time. Tip o' the hat to ya, Penguin Man.
What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah. At the exact moment that the pressure exerted on my wife in her professional life is increasing, for a variety of reasons, and the staff that she has available to her to help her deal with that pressure is decreasing, for a variety of reasons, the demands placed upon her by her extended family are also increasing. She is the go-to chick when it comes to getting problems solved, only this time, the problems are starting to look pretty damn near unsolvable. Yet solve them she must, while navigating the minefield of family history and catering to the particular needs and sensitivities of each individual party, and especially one particularly needy and sensitive party, all while still working 12 hours a day and not letting her son, or her husband, feel the burden of her stress or her absence.
And I'm supposed to help her. What I want to do to help her is to unleash the venom of 18 years of suppressed anger on certain parties, and especially one party in particular, but I know that it wouldn't really help, and I know that Aerie would definitely not appreciate it, so I keep on suppressing it. Come to think of it, she probably isn't going to appreciate this post, either, but...
FFFUUU...!!!
She's had enough. More than enough. And I've had enough. And more keeps coming, with no end in sight.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Belated
Once again, I forgot to acknowledge my blog's birthday this year (May 11). I've spent my free time the past couple of days reading through my 2007 posts, which is a remarkably narcissistic way to spend one's time, but still enlightening. I remembered many of those posts, but hadn't realized how early and close together they'd appeared. I wrote with much verbosity and frequency when I was still working full-time, spending 9 hours in front of a computer and doing surprisingly little work.
I'm also posting less because, well, I've said already, and repeatedly, much of what I'm thinking about these days. A graph of the number of posts per month over the last three years looks sort of like the EKG of a dying patient. I've mentioned that "He makes me laugh all the time, and he makes me frustrated all the time, and I'm not sure why I didn't know it would be like this," and that's pretty much my theme these days. I even start to bore myself when I talk about how wonderful Thumper is, and I'm not really interested in turning this blog into a place where I complain about the difficulties and frustrations that are a built-in part of raising a kid. And since I do this kid wranglin' thing full time, that doesn't leave me with much more to talk about.
What else was different then? I was funnier. I was livelier. I was a better performer. I think I had a voice then that I've lost. I had a more exuberant attitude about a world that I was discovering, and now I'm in a rut that doesn't inspire me as much as all those heady changes did back then. Plus, More Than a Minivan Mom and I had a falling out. She had and has a large following that bled over onto my blog when she added me to her blogroll. When we had a falling out that led to her removal from my blogroll and my removal from hers, it resulted in the loss of many readers and many commenters over here, though I suspect it had no effect on her readership over there. So sometimes I feel like I'm writing to my family and not many more than that, which still has value, but doesn't give me that intoxicating feeling of being an internet superstar.
Anyway. Those were crazy times. These are crazy times. The end.
I'm also posting less because, well, I've said already, and repeatedly, much of what I'm thinking about these days. A graph of the number of posts per month over the last three years looks sort of like the EKG of a dying patient. I've mentioned that "He makes me laugh all the time, and he makes me frustrated all the time, and I'm not sure why I didn't know it would be like this," and that's pretty much my theme these days. I even start to bore myself when I talk about how wonderful Thumper is, and I'm not really interested in turning this blog into a place where I complain about the difficulties and frustrations that are a built-in part of raising a kid. And since I do this kid wranglin' thing full time, that doesn't leave me with much more to talk about.
What else was different then? I was funnier. I was livelier. I was a better performer. I think I had a voice then that I've lost. I had a more exuberant attitude about a world that I was discovering, and now I'm in a rut that doesn't inspire me as much as all those heady changes did back then. Plus, More Than a Minivan Mom and I had a falling out. She had and has a large following that bled over onto my blog when she added me to her blogroll. When we had a falling out that led to her removal from my blogroll and my removal from hers, it resulted in the loss of many readers and many commenters over here, though I suspect it had no effect on her readership over there. So sometimes I feel like I'm writing to my family and not many more than that, which still has value, but doesn't give me that intoxicating feeling of being an internet superstar.
Anyway. Those were crazy times. These are crazy times. The end.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The World Wide Web is a Dirty Rotten Liar
The guy who regularly schedules the play dates for my Stay-at-Home Dads group was away from his computer for a couple of weeks, so he asked me to fill in for him. This week, I thought I'd depart from the usual round of playgrounds and seek grander adventures. I spent an hour or two on Sunday Googlin' around, checking out event calendars on the City of Austin and surrounding towns websites, and checking out other activities sites like Free in Austin and Austin Bored Kids.
MONDAY: Bilingual Storytime. OK, this one wasn't actually the Web's fault. It was exactly what, when, and where I thought it would be, but it turned out that Thumper had no more patience and attention for a bilingual storytime than he's had in the past for monolingual storytimes.
TUESDAY: Peter Pan Mini Golf. It's stunning to me that in this day and age, a business doesn't have a website. The Citysearch page didn't list operating hours. Austin360 said it "generally" opens at 9:00 a.m. I didn't call to verify the hours, because it never occurred to me it would be closed at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. Guess what? It was. "Generally" opens? Stupid South Austin hippie businesses...
WEDNESDAY: Georgetown Firefighter Museum. OK, this is where the Web really starts telling some whoppers. visit.georgetown.org assured me that I would find "Betsy, a prized 1922 Seagraves fire engine in mint condition" and that "[t]he station is still used as the city’s main fire station." After the Tuesday mix-up, I decided on Wednesday morning to call and verify, and it turns out that it's no longer a working station, Betsy has been moved elsewhere, and the "museum" is essentially a bookshelf in some administrative offices. "I don't want to tell you not to come," said the nice lady who answered the phone, "but..." So we went to a tried-and-true standby, the Georgetown Creative Playscape instead, where Thumper aggravated a three-year-old boy by steadfastly refusing to take direction.
THURSDAY: Austin Zoo. The train that's supposed to run every hour on the hour and which was a big part of Thumper's excitement while he patiently sat through the long car ride there, wasn't running today. Their website says: "Concession stand is open March 1 - June 1 Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays" so we didn't bring lunch, planning to eat hot dogs and Frito pies instead. It was closed. And neither of the vending machines would take my money, so when Thumper was suddenly and very emotionally hungry, there was nothing to eat. And the peacocks that Thumper found so fascinating last year were instead terrifying this year. And he tripped and fell flat on his face, busting his lip open. OK, most of that wasn't the web's fault, but still...
FRIDAY: The Cathedral of Junk. This one sounded pretty cool. Turns out, though, that it's been closed by the City of Austin. The owner, Vince, says in his answering machine message that he's fighting with the city, but until it's resolved, he can't let anyone in to see it, though you can "peek over the fence." Doesn't sound that enthralling for a two-year-old, so we'll have to think of something else to do tomorrow.
So out of 5 events, not one was the thriller I was looking for. I relied on the internet, and it let me down. The moral of the story: call ahead, and don't throw together a schedule at the last minute on Sunday night. The end.
MONDAY: Bilingual Storytime. OK, this one wasn't actually the Web's fault. It was exactly what, when, and where I thought it would be, but it turned out that Thumper had no more patience and attention for a bilingual storytime than he's had in the past for monolingual storytimes.
TUESDAY: Peter Pan Mini Golf. It's stunning to me that in this day and age, a business doesn't have a website. The Citysearch page didn't list operating hours. Austin360 said it "generally" opens at 9:00 a.m. I didn't call to verify the hours, because it never occurred to me it would be closed at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. Guess what? It was. "Generally" opens? Stupid South Austin hippie businesses...
WEDNESDAY: Georgetown Firefighter Museum. OK, this is where the Web really starts telling some whoppers. visit.georgetown.org assured me that I would find "Betsy, a prized 1922 Seagraves fire engine in mint condition" and that "[t]he station is still used as the city’s main fire station." After the Tuesday mix-up, I decided on Wednesday morning to call and verify, and it turns out that it's no longer a working station, Betsy has been moved elsewhere, and the "museum" is essentially a bookshelf in some administrative offices. "I don't want to tell you not to come," said the nice lady who answered the phone, "but..." So we went to a tried-and-true standby, the Georgetown Creative Playscape instead, where Thumper aggravated a three-year-old boy by steadfastly refusing to take direction.
THURSDAY: Austin Zoo. The train that's supposed to run every hour on the hour and which was a big part of Thumper's excitement while he patiently sat through the long car ride there, wasn't running today. Their website says: "Concession stand is open March 1 - June 1 Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays" so we didn't bring lunch, planning to eat hot dogs and Frito pies instead. It was closed. And neither of the vending machines would take my money, so when Thumper was suddenly and very emotionally hungry, there was nothing to eat. And the peacocks that Thumper found so fascinating last year were instead terrifying this year. And he tripped and fell flat on his face, busting his lip open. OK, most of that wasn't the web's fault, but still...
FRIDAY: The Cathedral of Junk. This one sounded pretty cool. Turns out, though, that it's been closed by the City of Austin. The owner, Vince, says in his answering machine message that he's fighting with the city, but until it's resolved, he can't let anyone in to see it, though you can "peek over the fence." Doesn't sound that enthralling for a two-year-old, so we'll have to think of something else to do tomorrow.
So out of 5 events, not one was the thriller I was looking for. I relied on the internet, and it let me down. The moral of the story: call ahead, and don't throw together a schedule at the last minute on Sunday night. The end.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
29-Month Slump
I've been in a slump lately. My weight loss has stopped, mostly because I stopped following the tenets of Weight Watchers. Again. My daily enthusiasm for spending time with Thumper has dropped off, partly because of a string of days where he was sick and the weather was too cold for playgrounds, partly because of the phase he's deep into now (throwing, hitting, screaming, resisting every idea that is not his own), and partly because my attitude sucks.
I yelled at him at dinner at the end of last week. Somehow, table manners became a big pet peeve for me. He bangs his fork. He plays with his food. He spits out his beverage. He throws peas on the floor. He paints with his spilled soup. I don't know when I became the "act right at the dinner table" Nazi, but I yelled at him. And Aerie got upset with me. And I got upset with her. And I brooded about it for two days before I came to the conclusion that she was right and apologized. I have to find a way to change my expectations for him. My expectation that he feed himself without incident is clearly out of whack with reality, so I can continue to get upset when that expectation isn't met, or I can accept that it's not a reasonable expectation now.
I've been thinking about this job, and about the arcs my other "real jobs" have taken over the years. I think I'm at the point where I'm comfortable with my ability to do my job. I've mastered many of the positive challenges of my daily tasks, the challenges I enjoy, but I haven't yet learned to live in harmony with those negative challenges, the ones that I don't enjoy. I've become complacent, and in some ways bored with a job I feel like I've learned how to do pretty well.
So what's the next part of the arc? Well, either settling comfortably into the rut and learning to appreciate the ease and the boredom, or finding new ways to expand my role so that I can keep growing and learning new things. What does that mean in practical application? I'm not sure. I don't think it means just finding new places to go, new parks and playgrounds and museums and shows. I've been thinking about Mother's Day Out programs a lot lately, as people keep impressing upon me how it's important to get him comfortable with a classroom setting before he enters full-time public school. The problem is: they're freakin' expensive. I wonder if these two problems of mine can find a solution for each other?
I don't know; I'm just talking here.
I yelled at him at dinner at the end of last week. Somehow, table manners became a big pet peeve for me. He bangs his fork. He plays with his food. He spits out his beverage. He throws peas on the floor. He paints with his spilled soup. I don't know when I became the "act right at the dinner table" Nazi, but I yelled at him. And Aerie got upset with me. And I got upset with her. And I brooded about it for two days before I came to the conclusion that she was right and apologized. I have to find a way to change my expectations for him. My expectation that he feed himself without incident is clearly out of whack with reality, so I can continue to get upset when that expectation isn't met, or I can accept that it's not a reasonable expectation now.
I've been thinking about this job, and about the arcs my other "real jobs" have taken over the years. I think I'm at the point where I'm comfortable with my ability to do my job. I've mastered many of the positive challenges of my daily tasks, the challenges I enjoy, but I haven't yet learned to live in harmony with those negative challenges, the ones that I don't enjoy. I've become complacent, and in some ways bored with a job I feel like I've learned how to do pretty well.
So what's the next part of the arc? Well, either settling comfortably into the rut and learning to appreciate the ease and the boredom, or finding new ways to expand my role so that I can keep growing and learning new things. What does that mean in practical application? I'm not sure. I don't think it means just finding new places to go, new parks and playgrounds and museums and shows. I've been thinking about Mother's Day Out programs a lot lately, as people keep impressing upon me how it's important to get him comfortable with a classroom setting before he enters full-time public school. The problem is: they're freakin' expensive. I wonder if these two problems of mine can find a solution for each other?
I don't know; I'm just talking here.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sick
I used to be a daily Today Show viewer. Most of the time, I complained about it. I disliked Katie Couric and how she really, really, really wanted the families of the Columbine victims to squeeze out a few more tears. But it was better than the other network morning shows, I liked watching TV while eating my breakfast, and it made me feel like I was somewhat informed about national news. So I watched it, and I ridiculed it.
I didn't want to watch it with Thumper around, though, so we've been daily viewers of Sesame Street instead. Elmo is a whole other kettle of fish when it comes to the horrors of television, but I certainly haven't missed Matt and Meredith at all. In fact now, when I do catch a few minutes of it because Thumper isn't up yet, and Aerie was watching the local newscast for the weather which then bounced back to the network feed, I'm mildly horrified. It's an endless parade of tragedies and celebrity freak show voyeurism. Why did I watch that?
This morning, Thumper was still asleep, and Aerie was hanging around the house a little later than usual. She had Today on when I walked through, and I caught a few details. The sad story of Michael Brewer was particularly bleak, and it made me realize another way in which parenting has changed me. Before, I would have consumed the entire segment and felt superior to the people who could commit such an atrocity and to the parents who spawned them. I'd feel a twinge of empathy, a hint of horror, and my certainty about the black pit at the center of human nature would be confirmed. And then I'd sit there and wait for the next three-minute segment of human depravity to be paraded before me.
This morning, I had to walk away. As soon as I heard enough of the story to imagine Thumper as the victim of such an act, I couldn't watch another second. Now I know what people mean by "chilling."
Hypocritically, when I thought about writing a blog post, I searched for the segment on the show's website and watched it in its entirety. I wanted to see if I could find an answer to the question in my mind: Why would the mother agree to be on the show, to let herself and her child be this week's morsel drooled over by Meredith as she serves it up for our consumption, to be forgotten in favor of some other morsel tomorrow or next week? The mother did make a plea for peace, for the rejection of violence as a solution to human problems, but Meredith sidestepped that plea without comment and came right back, prodding for the soft spot that would get the tears flowing. The mother didn't break down completely during the interview, so at the end, Meredith tells Matt that the interview was filmed before the show went on the air, and the mother did break down after the interview was over. While still on camera! And we have it here! We asked her if it was OK if we showed it, and she said yes! So they show several moments of her sobbing, and we, the audience, we slurp it up.
I don't want to be a part of that anymore. The celebrity gossip! The murders! The rapes! The abuse! The 18-year-long kidnap victim! and Michael Jackson on endless loop! I mostly get it now only from the magazine covers when I stand in line at the grocery store. I'm going to try to avert my eyes from now on. I also watch TV Guide Channel because we don't have digital cable and never know what's on. I put the Mute on and suffer through the slow motion scrolling of the schedule beneath Michael Jackson and Flava Flav and New York and Ashton Kutcher, but still. Even muted, it seeps in through the eyes. If this is being informed, I'd rather be ignorant.
Sick.
I didn't want to watch it with Thumper around, though, so we've been daily viewers of Sesame Street instead. Elmo is a whole other kettle of fish when it comes to the horrors of television, but I certainly haven't missed Matt and Meredith at all. In fact now, when I do catch a few minutes of it because Thumper isn't up yet, and Aerie was watching the local newscast for the weather which then bounced back to the network feed, I'm mildly horrified. It's an endless parade of tragedies and celebrity freak show voyeurism. Why did I watch that?
This morning, Thumper was still asleep, and Aerie was hanging around the house a little later than usual. She had Today on when I walked through, and I caught a few details. The sad story of Michael Brewer was particularly bleak, and it made me realize another way in which parenting has changed me. Before, I would have consumed the entire segment and felt superior to the people who could commit such an atrocity and to the parents who spawned them. I'd feel a twinge of empathy, a hint of horror, and my certainty about the black pit at the center of human nature would be confirmed. And then I'd sit there and wait for the next three-minute segment of human depravity to be paraded before me.
This morning, I had to walk away. As soon as I heard enough of the story to imagine Thumper as the victim of such an act, I couldn't watch another second. Now I know what people mean by "chilling."
Hypocritically, when I thought about writing a blog post, I searched for the segment on the show's website and watched it in its entirety. I wanted to see if I could find an answer to the question in my mind: Why would the mother agree to be on the show, to let herself and her child be this week's morsel drooled over by Meredith as she serves it up for our consumption, to be forgotten in favor of some other morsel tomorrow or next week? The mother did make a plea for peace, for the rejection of violence as a solution to human problems, but Meredith sidestepped that plea without comment and came right back, prodding for the soft spot that would get the tears flowing. The mother didn't break down completely during the interview, so at the end, Meredith tells Matt that the interview was filmed before the show went on the air, and the mother did break down after the interview was over. While still on camera! And we have it here! We asked her if it was OK if we showed it, and she said yes! So they show several moments of her sobbing, and we, the audience, we slurp it up.
I don't want to be a part of that anymore. The celebrity gossip! The murders! The rapes! The abuse! The 18-year-long kidnap victim! and Michael Jackson on endless loop! I mostly get it now only from the magazine covers when I stand in line at the grocery store. I'm going to try to avert my eyes from now on. I also watch TV Guide Channel because we don't have digital cable and never know what's on. I put the Mute on and suffer through the slow motion scrolling of the schedule beneath Michael Jackson and Flava Flav and New York and Ashton Kutcher, but still. Even muted, it seeps in through the eyes. If this is being informed, I'd rather be ignorant.
Sick.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Screw You, American Fast Food
Since I've been doing Weight Watchers, I haven't been eating out as much except for Souper Salad. So when I do commit my points to something special, I want it to be phenomenal. I busted my ass at the gym this morning and decided that since we were running all over the place, it was a good day for a treat. A coffee and a breakfast taco! Was it phenomenal? No. It was lukewarm coffee, and a breakfast burrito so atomically hot that once I could finally touch it without burning myself, the tortilla had disintegrated and glued itself to the foil wrapper, making it impossible to unwrap and thus impossible to eat. Screw you, Scooter's Coffeehouse.
The boy almost never gets fast food, and since we played so intensely and for so long at the playground this morning, and since he was starting to doze on the way home for lunch, I decided to stop at Wendy's and let him have a burger. I got a burger and small fries, and we shared the fries. He really enjoyed it, especially since I let him sit in the booth without a high chair and dip his fries in his own little cup of ketchup. Woo hoo!
Well, screw you, too, Wendy's (and every other fast food burger joint I used to enjoy). "It's waaaay better than fast food" my ass. In portions resulting in reasonable caloric levels, your food is completely unsatisfying. In the portions in which you sell it, it's horrifyingly fattening. 16 points for a sandwich and a side dish? And it's not even good enough to qualify as a special occasion. I paid 16 valuable Weight Watchers points for that lunch, and the fries were cold and pasty. The burger was swimming in so much ketchup and mayonnaise, I used six napkins. The one little leaf of lettuce was wilted, and the cheese isn't even real.
I blew almost half my daily points allowance, and I didn't even enjoy the experience. I knew that fast food was crappy, but I never really thought of it as so expensive before. Expensive and crappy are a bad combination.
The boy almost never gets fast food, and since we played so intensely and for so long at the playground this morning, and since he was starting to doze on the way home for lunch, I decided to stop at Wendy's and let him have a burger. I got a burger and small fries, and we shared the fries. He really enjoyed it, especially since I let him sit in the booth without a high chair and dip his fries in his own little cup of ketchup. Woo hoo!
Well, screw you, too, Wendy's (and every other fast food burger joint I used to enjoy). "It's waaaay better than fast food" my ass. In portions resulting in reasonable caloric levels, your food is completely unsatisfying. In the portions in which you sell it, it's horrifyingly fattening. 16 points for a sandwich and a side dish? And it's not even good enough to qualify as a special occasion. I paid 16 valuable Weight Watchers points for that lunch, and the fries were cold and pasty. The burger was swimming in so much ketchup and mayonnaise, I used six napkins. The one little leaf of lettuce was wilted, and the cheese isn't even real.
I blew almost half my daily points allowance, and I didn't even enjoy the experience. I knew that fast food was crappy, but I never really thought of it as so expensive before. Expensive and crappy are a bad combination.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Blahsy Blahsy Blue
That's my college roommate's phrase for "blah blah blah." As in, "So we were talking, and blahsy blahsy blue, one thing led to another..." Others of his were, "all that and a bag of chips," and "I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers."
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Nothing much. Just this that and the other. You know, blahsy blahsy blue.
1. I hate when I get that phlebotomist. You know the one who sticks the needle in, and nothing happens, so he "makes an adjustment," and still nothing happens, so he makes another adjustment, and you're really starting to wonder why in the hell you give blood in the first place, and then he calls over the other phlebotomist to "take a look," and she gets it going on the first try? Yeah, that one. I hate it when I get that guy.
2. @gmoyle, it's not really my story to tell, I guess, but I suppose I could just mention that my sister, @badkitty812, drove from Florida, and she brought along her "friend" to "help with the driving," and gave us the impression that her friend knew people in the area and was doing her own thing, but mentioned at the family gathering that her friend was really just waiting for her in the hotel room, so we said, "What? You left her in the hotel room?" So she came out to breakfast with all of us the next morning, and some of us wondered, "So are they...?" And yes, it turns out, when they returned to Florida, @badkitty812 tells us that they're a couple, but she didn't want to come out to us because she didn't know how we'd react, and we didn't care, we were just glad she was happy, and so now I have a sister-in-law-if-the-law-were-just. Her name is @Pirate71, and apparently she's not small, she's fun-sized. And she encourages popsicles, squirt guns, and the playing of catch.
3. It is a story as old as... well, as old as someone born in 1992. Wow. Can you believe that someone born in 1992 would be 17 years old now? Wow. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. It's a story as old as time: a child who loves Barney, much to the horror and disgust of his parents. One of Aerie's co-workers gave us a bag full of books, one of which is a Barney title in which a little boy named Alex prepares for the arrival of his new baby sister, with Barney's loving support, encouragement, and guidance. There's only one illustration in the whole book where not every single character is grinning a face-splitting grin, and that's when Alex has his one moment of weakness after Mom's too busy putting the baby to bed to play with him and he has to be quiet to keep from waking the baby, and he admits to Barney that maybe being a big brother is not the big steaming pile of fun he thought it would be, and Barney tells him to just wait, it's going to be super-dee-duper! I now have to read this horrifying piece of crap to Thumper every naptime and bedtime. It's drawn as poorly as it's written, but I try to read it with enthusiasm and never let on to the boy how much I despise it. If he knew, he'd make me read it twice as much.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Nothing much. Just this that and the other. You know, blahsy blahsy blue.
1. I hate when I get that phlebotomist. You know the one who sticks the needle in, and nothing happens, so he "makes an adjustment," and still nothing happens, so he makes another adjustment, and you're really starting to wonder why in the hell you give blood in the first place, and then he calls over the other phlebotomist to "take a look," and she gets it going on the first try? Yeah, that one. I hate it when I get that guy.
2. @gmoyle, it's not really my story to tell, I guess, but I suppose I could just mention that my sister, @badkitty812, drove from Florida, and she brought along her "friend" to "help with the driving," and gave us the impression that her friend knew people in the area and was doing her own thing, but mentioned at the family gathering that her friend was really just waiting for her in the hotel room, so we said, "What? You left her in the hotel room?" So she came out to breakfast with all of us the next morning, and some of us wondered, "So are they...?" And yes, it turns out, when they returned to Florida, @badkitty812 tells us that they're a couple, but she didn't want to come out to us because she didn't know how we'd react, and we didn't care, we were just glad she was happy, and so now I have a sister-in-law-if-the-law-were-just. Her name is @Pirate71, and apparently she's not small, she's fun-sized. And she encourages popsicles, squirt guns, and the playing of catch.
3. It is a story as old as... well, as old as someone born in 1992. Wow. Can you believe that someone born in 1992 would be 17 years old now? Wow. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. It's a story as old as time: a child who loves Barney, much to the horror and disgust of his parents. One of Aerie's co-workers gave us a bag full of books, one of which is a Barney title in which a little boy named Alex prepares for the arrival of his new baby sister, with Barney's loving support, encouragement, and guidance. There's only one illustration in the whole book where not every single character is grinning a face-splitting grin, and that's when Alex has his one moment of weakness after Mom's too busy putting the baby to bed to play with him and he has to be quiet to keep from waking the baby, and he admits to Barney that maybe being a big brother is not the big steaming pile of fun he thought it would be, and Barney tells him to just wait, it's going to be super-dee-duper! I now have to read this horrifying piece of crap to Thumper every naptime and bedtime. It's drawn as poorly as it's written, but I try to read it with enthusiasm and never let on to the boy how much I despise it. If he knew, he'd make me read it twice as much.
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