#298

Aroldis Chapman can really bring it. He just hit 103 (mph) against the White Sox. He's touched 105. He looks good in a blue hat with a red 'C.'

Grandpa Swede's brother told me, "Your grandpa wasn't very big, but he could really rush it up there. He overpowered hitters." And Grandpa Byard was signed by the Cubs to a contract (but then went to war in Korea). My point: M 'n' m have good genes. They also have good jeans. Or at least Michael does, and he's nearly my size; if they're cool, I won't hesitate. I do the laundry after all. How did those end up in my closet?

Parenthood: Tiny, sweet-smelling babies arrive. The amount of noise and feces they create is remarkable, and their smiles and laughs delight, and you take megabytes of photos like the one below, and then one day... the popularity of goatees sinks lower than fanny packs, or socks with sandals, or whatever is horribly old and un-fly! Style is as fickle as parenting. 

There's no normal life, Wyatt. There's just life. Now get on with it.
           –– Doc Holiday in Tombstone

And the best thing you've ever done for me

is to help me take my life less seriously.
It's only life after all.

Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable,
and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket.
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it....

I went to see the Doctor of Philosophy
with a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee.
He never did marry or see a B-Grade movie.
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me....
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line.
And the less I seek my source for some definitive,
the closer I am to fine. The closer I am to fine.

          –– Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine, genius

#297

As an instructive and meticulous parent, I am negligent at times. Yeah, as they say, shocking. For some reason – laziness, faith, a conscious choice, my propensity to people-please – I never batter M 'n' m with do's, don'ts, reminders, warnings, and tips. I'd say some dads overdo it, and some under-do it (like me), and then there's a guy in Switzerland or wherever who gets it right, a shining, perfect father. But he's the only one. And I'd say, regarding my laxity, extreme matters of behavior and safety are excepted, and basic expectations are clear. (Be polite, positive, and productive. Period. Megan's politeness is generally lacking, but I'll indict myself for that later.) Indeed, the daily, common-sense, little things I fail to monitor and illuminate can brew into catastrophe, literally. My example? Michael's laundry basket. It's just gross and scary to begin with; he's a teenager now, 6' and 150lbs, and no one like that has laundry undeserving of a Jolly Roger or a hazmat warning. It's poison, dude. I should make him dump his own laundry in the machine, but he's a millennial, and they don't do shit. (That's just a wink to common generational criticism.) So I grabbed Michael's laundry basket and it felt heavy. I pulled some clothes out and discovered a kind of wet-towel sandwich. A 'wrap,' actually, chicken Caesar, buffalo chicken, you get it. Although it was covered, so maybe a Burrito suizo? Sorry. Thankfully, no black mold yet and only the beginnings of some fantastic aromas. I barked at him, but he's been traveling, I've been traveling, excuses, excuses. It was a teaching moment, although he already knew better. We'll see if it happens again. It probably will.

More about teaching moments: Yesterday, it was a thousand degrees outside so I decided to edge our sidewalk on hands-and-knees with a knife. I just severed and pulled the spreading grass. I poured sweat, and no doubt smart guys do it standing up with expensive tools – yes, that's some low-hanging innuendo there – but the dumb part is actually how I cheese-grated my finger-flesh on the concrete and then ran inside and squeezed lemons. It's a fine acid. I was thirsty. Anyway, it didn't hurt as much as remind me of the time I was really dumb: I de-seeded my potted jalapenos and then took out my contacts. Holy Mother of God. And that – my searing eyeballs I mean – reminded me of the time I really hurt my eyes: I arc welded all night in college and caught too many flashes. Eyes heal fast but I still looked like Bob Marley's roommate for a few days; I could only manage the minutest bloodshot squint. The lesson? Make sure M 'n' m take care of their eyeballs.

"All writing, all art, is a wild leap off a cliff because there's nothing to support you, you're creating something out of nothing really, no one is telling you to do it, it comes from within." – Jhumpa Lahiri

"What the really great artists do is they are entirely themselves, they're entirely themselves and they've got their own vision, their own way of refracting reality, and if it's authentic and true you will feel it in your nerve endings." – David Foster Wallace

Feast

#296

Forget, for a second, your disbelief that someone could actually vote for Donald Trump or actually vote for Hillary Clinton, italicized for that sort of pent-up, election-year acidity, or bitterness. The other side is crazy! How could they vote for a candidate so obviously corrupt, vain, or dumb?! Folks are freaked out. I get it. The future is at stake, our children, our planet, the evils that threaten. This isn't mockery. Every four years it's intense, and it should be. It's always important. This year, the number of people firmly in the 'neither' camp feels unprecedented and scary – indicating they're both, indeed, very poor – but I think we'll survive. I recall when Ross Perot got nearly 20% of the popular vote. One of every five voters? Maybe the 'neither' or anti-establishment movement isn't new after all. And our founders were geniuses; Congress is as powerful as the President, in the event we need saving. We'll see who wins. We'll see what happens. If M 'n' m are passionate about politics, no sweat, but I'll impress upon them the usefulness of civility and a certain distance, when going there in conversation, if they value their likability and sanity. Sometimes, however, it's unavoidable. Even I have a spine, a stance, an immovable position on certain matters with political feel. Take, for instance, the following 'candidacy' that I support so absolutely that I'm incredulous, belittling, accusatory, and sarcastic when I encounter disagreement; I literally see zero sense in anything that sounds antithetical, and the slightest hint at the slightest agreement with the slightest position held by the other side sounds aggressively antithetical. What am talking about? Let me put it this way: Why the f*ck would anyone choose regular Oreos over Double Stuf? Seriously. WTF is wrong with people? Double Stufs are so much better. The originals are thin and weak and should be off the shelf, period.

I mentioned here that Megan still draws. This is good because I just learned – via science and documented research, although I've always suspected and felt this to be true – that when we draw our brains emit serotonin and oxytocin. When we make things, in general, we are given these wonderful chemicals; we give them to ourselves, technically, but describing them as gifts makes the most sense to me. They help us feel happy, creative, and capable. Bam. I want Megan to feel this way always. I'm no stranger to running low on good-chemicals. And that isn't a joke about drugs. Low seratonin is an interesting place to find yourself. You might be the luckiest, safest, most fortunate person in the world, and yet it's a battle to feel calm and secure. And so we draw, paint, build, write. Awesome. Let's do it. A lot about life makes sense when I reflect on this logical – and to me, essential, magical, simple – equation. If you want to feel better, create. Memories, experiences, relationships, skills, art, music, a career, a home, a life. But M 'n' m will also discover, as I have, that it's not easy. It takes work, energy, habit, ritual. As Pablo Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." And Jack London put it this way, "You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

"Writing is very difficult for me, it takes a lot of time and energy." — David Foster Wallace

"I think we're less divided than we think we are (in the human experience).... But my description of this room will differ from your description of this room, and everyone else's, because we are limited and graced by our own pair of eyes.... I think this is the beauty of creative work." — Jhumpa Lahiri

Below is my bookmark...

... while reading about the most powerful Indian tribe in American history, the Comanches. M 'n' m have Native American ancestry through Grandma Barb, whose grandma was French-Indian we're told, and had the appearance – facial structure and skin tone – to corroborate the claim. Funny, it's probably un-PC to describe someone this way, but she was my Great-Grandma Florence, mom to my esteemed Grandpa Swede (nicknamed as such because his dad was 100% Swedish) and I saw her many times when I was young and loved her dearly. I am proud to have Native American ancestry, but have yet to determine definitively what nation. Pawnee, Fox, Ojibwe, Cree, or Lakota perhaps. Grandma and Papa Mike live near a reservation in Minnesota and at a shop there – an awesome place that sells native weapons, instruments, art, leather goods, and bear claws! – the native shop-keeper told me she'd guess I was Ojibwe, based on my facial, physical, and complexion characteristics. Maybe she was full of it, but I walked outta there feelin' ten feet tall! As cool, in my opinion, as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Tecumseh, Red Cloud, Cochise, Quanah Parker, Geronimo, Black Hawk, or – he's fictional but a favorite – One Stab. I say so without any humor whatsoever; I am simply proud of the possibility of this heritage and ancestry, for myself and M 'n' m.

#295

My spaces in our home are overrun with books. Bedside table, dresser, shelves, office table; often I leave books on the eating tables and counters. I can be cluttery and messy with books. I wish the same for M 'n' m, now and always.

M 'n' m spend over a month a year under the roofs of their grandparents' houses. For you math and calendar wizards, this is a twelfth of their days; equivalent to a night every two weeks spent in the full sunny, happy, generous, loving influence of grandparents. I'm grateful.

"His witty grandfathers were a serious influence on (Peter) Arno’s humor, especially in contrast to his strict, ambitious father." From Vanity Fair. I'm not a 'strict, ambitious father,' but I want M 'n' m to be influenced and broadened by the varieties in personality, style, disposition, wit and wisdom, and energy they will witness genuinely in those they share a deep, reciprocal love with. 

I found this note I scribbled on Father's Day: The era of Facebook has given us a broad and popular canvas for 'tribute,' if that makes sense; we thank and praise loved ones on holidays, birthday, anniversaries. It's Father's day, and I can't put into words – a phrase, of course, that is always followed by... more words – my gratitude for my grandfathers, uncles, father-figures, and father. The toughness, the wit, the entirety of their lives, energies, and stories; I feel very lucky.

When I was young, my dad was a cigarette-smoker and often called them 'bogies.' "I'll be right back," he'd say, "I'm gonna have a bogie." It went like that. He also had a mustache. He was cool. He still is. Bogart is cool, too; a master cigarette-dangler, and the voice. But clean-shaven. Rollie Fingers, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Clark Gable, and Einstein are really cool. The mustache musters a mini-comeback now and then, and I'm always supportive.

Why can't the National League win an All-Star game? With this week's loss, the NL has won 3 of the last 20. They're impressively inept. I'm both disappointed and confounded by the AL's dominance. Michael, less so. He likes the Royals and Twins. I don't give a shit about the Royals and Twins. If the World Series comes to Wrigley, I want home field advantage for the Cubs (determined by the 'Midsummer Classic' result now for a decade). And obviously, this means if things go seven, four come to Wrigley, not three. Are you laughing because the Cubs never go to the World Series? Well, you're wrong. They did. In late 1945, my Grandpa wrote home from Austria (still in ETO after surviving WWII) predicting the Cubs would beat the Tigers in the World Series. He was wrong (the Cubs won game 6 in extras to force a game 7 which they lost). Grandpa Swede was likely somewhat objective, because he was a lifelong Cardinals fan. Nobody's perfect. So it's 70 years since an appearance, and about 110 since a win. That's rough.

#294

I've noticed parenting is often "do as I say, not as I do" or, in a word, hypocrisy. So be it; between parent and child, it's always been this way ("Never fight a mammoth, Son. Now where's my spear so I can kill that woolly mother-f*cker," and so on and so forth, for millennia.... I know that wasn't funny, but effort is important; at least that's what I tell M 'n' m.) So this morning's hypocritical act for me goes like this: I always tell Michael to cover his toes when he's moving heavy objects, mowing, working in the yard or the garage (otherwise, he often lazily stays barefoot and I visualize one of his toes getting gashed or crushed like a grape). So a few hours ago I was prying off paneling in the basement and I dropped the pry bar on my... bare foot. Hurt like a mother-f*cker. Blood and bruising. Okay, I'll shut-off the foul language, but bad words have an artistic place in the contemporary writing I find clever and moving. It's all about being cool, right? WRONG! M 'n' m, it's NOT about being cool. Profanity, which will never escape your lips or be scribbled by your fingers – is about emphasis and the purest conveyance of feeling, raw, unfiltered, the ugly no more hidden than the pretty. It's about connection, honesty, and the spectrum of reality, about the flexibility and flaws, beauties, and extremes of expression via language. And, as I mentioned above, from parent to child, for eons, it's been 'do as I say, not as I do.'"

Megan goes to Kansas City every summer for a long grandparent visit. I miss her. Michael goes too, but I feel more connected to him when he's far away. He calls me; I call him; we're good. It's not so with Meg-o. She's just not an Olympic-caliber long-distance communicator. When she's in Kansas or Minnesota I'm certain she'll call. I wait. And I wait. But no. So I call her – about once a day – and she's terse and distracted. And she's not even a teenager yet. Can I use the F-word again? It's funny, now I'm wondering if my parents are reading this and judging me; although Papa Mike is a man of oaths, for sure, and M 'n' m have heard his colorful best – I'm Mr. Rogers compared to Papa – so even though parenting is hypocrisy, remember, Papa Mike won't cuss me for cussing. I digress. Back to Megan. She'll be home soon and I'll give her a crushing hug and smother her with kisses, none of which will graze her cheeks or her lips because she stubbornly exposes only her forehead – an instinct or habit I'm okay with I suppose. Besides, my favorite spot to kiss her has always been right above an ear on the side of her head. I know when she changes shampoos. 

"I had heard that word at least ten times a day from my old man. He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; a master." – Ralphie, A Christmas Story, 1983, genius

Recognize anyone other than Hosmer?

Hint: Right above Hosmer, hands blocking his face a little, hopefully yelling, "Go Cubs!" Great seats to see the defending champs.

#293

It's funny that a mischievous thing for M 'n' m to do is enable the 'WiFi hotspot' on my phone to siphon off data. They do this sneakily in the car, for example, where WiFi is painfully absent. It's odd, I guess, because the mischievous things I did involved spitballs, whoopie cushions, playful theft of tangible shit. Times have changed. Are fart jokes even funny anymore? Regarding WiFi, places still exist without it. Parks, pools, lakes. OMG! No WiFi?! Ugh. I suppose the height of inhospitableness these days is no WiFi. How rude, primitive, barbaric. It forces us to look at each other and not our devices, and talk face-to-face. It's so refreshing, quaint. Michael gets a small amount of cellular data every month. Meg doesn't; she has an iPad and Android phone but no cell plan or number yet. At home, of course, WiFi is taken for granted as much as electricity, toilets, water. Kids enter their houses and bam, they're connected. It's instant and automatic (isn't everything these days?). I'd love to see a Millennial deal with dial-up. Never mind fat, low-res monitors, kilohertz processors, horrible graphics, s-l-o-w networks. PCs that hourglassed forever. Floppies. Today we are super-connected and over-informed. We're lucky. I remind M 'n' m, however, to be human beings also. This means talking to other people in person, understanding social mores, recognizing social cues (that aren't texted, IM'ed, emoji'ed, instagrammed, or snapchatted), and once in a while being present to the physical surroundings and five senses (or is it six?) that God gave us. Technology is cool, useful, powerful. This is good. But tech can depersonalize and shrink us, too. And as long as I'm lecturing M 'n' m about crap, I intend to mix in this little unrelated tidbit I'm big on lately: Do not squander your credibility. Squander money, candy, energy, material things that don't matter in the end, whatever, if you must, but do not squander your credibility. Accidents and poor choices happen, but credibility and honesty are genuine and deep and they need to be preserved, solid, unflimsy, unfragile. We need to have mutual sincerity, trust, and respect. Amen.

Megan is on her device too much but she's also very artsy-and-craft-y the old-fashioned way. She still draws (and I hope she does so forever). Her latest thing is acrylic painting. And she frequently embarks on random, awesome, creative misadventures with Sophie (involving food, chemicals, clothes, clay, wax, soap, plants, makeup, pretty much any raw material you can think of). Stains, dirty sinks, and beautiful messes are encouraged, even if I bitch about them. Recently, the girls made banana ice cream and ate it as they planted cacti in pots they intricately painted. God bless Sophie and her influence on Megan.

"... our mother has always stressed the fact that our familial relationships have a kind of permanence that we will never meet with again." – from Pulitzer winner John Cheever's short story "Goodbye, My Brother"

From the same story, a favorite piece of writing and a kind of koan or question of philosophy for M 'n' m: "Oh, what can you do with a man like that? What can you do? How can you dissuade his eyes in a crowd from seeking out the cheek with acne, the infirm hand; how can you teach him to respond to the inestimable greatness of the race, the harsh surface beauty of life; how can you put his finger for him on the obdurate truths before which fear and horror are powerless?"

#292

We are home but Michael isn't. I picked up Meg though, which always puts a little more air in my lungs. Michael is in a favorite place, Minnesota. When he returns, I'm afraid I'll be looking up at him. Meg is rather like bamboo, also (the fastest growing plant on the planet), and a very thin stalk; she eats, I've seen her, but one could wonder. Meg's softball team won the championship. There were several good teams and great players, but the 'Bulldogs' were the only ones standing at the end. Meg was easily the most improved player and a massive difference-maker for the team. She pitched two scoreless innings in the final – the max allowable per player – and played perfect 1B – another super-critical position at her level. And she batted clean-up, just like her brother! (She adores Michael – her rock, her consistency,  throughout the divorce and life, in general, for her so far – so to mimic him in some efforts and accomplishments is motivational; did I mention she starts the cello this year, too?). I'm so happy for Megan; she worked hard – accepting nearly all of my offers for additional practice during the season – and earned her softball success.

Our trip was extraordinary. Every place stunned us in one way or another. Jeanette and I fought off tears in Venice – Jeanette lost; I only misted – we were so moved by its stark singularity and beauty. Its style, spirit, charm are momentously unlike anything we'd seen. And the history, of course, of the Venetians and simply everyone and everything in Italy is, well – and this was the symbolic intent I'm sure – like its basilicas; gigantic, pharaonic, seemingly never-ending. Florence blew us away, also. The abundance of things there – the Duomo, David, Piazzale Michelangelo, the architecture, galleries, masterpieces – is effin' crazy. Then the Italian Riviera. For me, something like Cinque Terre has to be seen to be believed. I don't write well enough yet to describe it, but it must be some of God's finest work here. In Stockholm, the Vasa left us speechless. An unrivaled piece of history. The coastline and Gamla Stan, the 'Old Town,' were unforgettable. The meals in Sweden were as good as the pasta in Italy, in my opinion (but I have Swedish ancestry). I had meatballs in Stockholm three times, along with reindeer, elk, and herring. We loved our last night in Zurich, where we stumbled upon the largest Swiss festival, Züri Fäscht, which attracts millions of people, literally, over three days. By the way, it's a party they only throw every three years. We were shocked again; we had no idea we'd be there for an incredible event; we were still hungover – not from alcohol – and awestruck by our Alpine train ride through northern Italy and Switzerland. And our first stop, a layover in Edinburgh, put us in the UK on the day of the Brexit vote. Talk about history, and another coincidence. The weather was flawless the entire time. That's the trip in a nutshell. Jeanette and I are grateful. I hope and pray M 'n' m have similar experiences. On the trip my quick mantra-prayer (when I was moved to goosebumps and/or muttering gratitude) was, "God, thank you for my children, and my loved ones... and my travels."  

Happy 4th. The country we live in is still the best ever.