Thursday, September 29, 2016
Sunday, September 25, 2016
#315
Megan is very interested in makeup now. She likes to apply it, wear it, and shop for it, although shopping is mostly just browsing at CVS or Target, not killing anyone's wallet at MAC or Sephora or some Chicago boutique. I don't know makeup like Boy George or Dee Snider (my examples show my age), but I know it can be pricey. I thought of suggesting chicks are more expensive than dudes — as young people I mean — but it's simply not true. Michael's baseball bats are worth a lot of cosmetics. And Michael doesn't play hockey or football; I imagine the equipment cost for those sports approaches obscene. I can tell you how eye shadow, eyeliner, foundation, and lipstick work. I don't intend to be clueless, in matters of female adornment and style, especially as a divorced dad. So what is the stuff that goes on eyelashes called, applied with that little cylindrical brush? I know eyeliner is a pencil. I suppose it's inevitable, Meg beginning that transition from cute to beautiful. And regarding makeup, I hope she learns quickly that less can be more.
One of my favorite and most trusted advisers, Jimmy the Bartender from Men's Health magazine, handled a relevant question in a recent issue: "Do I really need to have a birds-and-bees talk with my 13-year-old boy? Don't kids get all that from the internet these days? (I've had a few talks with Michael already, and I've mentioned the internet in those talks, although not as a substitute for the talks themselves.) Jimmy the Bartender's answer: "The sex talk is a time-honored tradition: Anxious father sits down with son to explain stuff the kid's known about for years. There's no 'these days' about any of this. When you talk to the boy about sex and women — and yeah, you should — focus on respect and responsibility. That's what boys need to learn from their fathers, and it's something they won't find on the internet."
Right on, Jimmy.
"The greatest gift I have received is my son — he has taught me more than anyone, not just how to love, but how to keep it simple....The storms and shoals of the journey help make the man, so I try to bite my lip when I can bear it, and let my son undergo his own mistakes and learning."
— John Hickenlooper
Bears at Dallas tonight. Bear down. Remember: It's never as good or as bad — or as terrible — as it looks.
One of my favorite and most trusted advisers, Jimmy the Bartender from Men's Health magazine, handled a relevant question in a recent issue: "Do I really need to have a birds-and-bees talk with my 13-year-old boy? Don't kids get all that from the internet these days? (I've had a few talks with Michael already, and I've mentioned the internet in those talks, although not as a substitute for the talks themselves.) Jimmy the Bartender's answer: "The sex talk is a time-honored tradition: Anxious father sits down with son to explain stuff the kid's known about for years. There's no 'these days' about any of this. When you talk to the boy about sex and women — and yeah, you should — focus on respect and responsibility. That's what boys need to learn from their fathers, and it's something they won't find on the internet."
Right on, Jimmy.
"The greatest gift I have received is my son — he has taught me more than anyone, not just how to love, but how to keep it simple....The storms and shoals of the journey help make the man, so I try to bite my lip when I can bear it, and let my son undergo his own mistakes and learning."
— John Hickenlooper
Bears at Dallas tonight. Bear down. Remember: It's never as good or as bad — or as terrible — as it looks.
#314
We went to the roller rink for Megan's school skate night. M 'n' m wear rollerblades, which are an abomination; it's roller skates for me, baby; with rainbows, pom-poms, bell-bottoms, disco; actually, I missed all that; I don't remember skating before 1980. I remember sucking at it though. Indeed, my roller rink memories are conflicted because I had fun but was horrible on wheels and it was embarrassing to be so bad at a thing and Josh, goddamm Josh, could skate like Travolta could dance and I knew Desiree and Ashley were starry-eyed under their feathered bangs, whenever Josh glided by and through and around them, backwards, spinning, squatting like a catcher on one leg and sticking out the other leg — fucking Josh; what is that move called anyway, made me wanna be Josh before I wanted to be Robin Yount or Rickey Henderson even. Old jealousies die hard. Josh was one hell of an athlete. Pretty sure he doesn't read this, or Desiree or Ashley. I don't know when rollerblades become popular, but they aren't for guys born in the seventies who pushed the pumpkin and not the puck (I was a basketball player).
Rickey Henderson stole 130 bases in 1982 and 1406 in his career. Lou Brock is second with 938 career stolen bases, and Vince Coleman was no slouch, but Rickey was the man; he was my favorite player when I was a kid. He had longevity and quite a personality too. In the early '80s, the Oakland A's discovered a $1 million accounting error. They investigated and determined Rickey was the reason. The GM asked him about a $1 million bonus he had received and Rickey said instead of cashing it, he framed it and hung it on his wall.
Back to the roller rink: When Michael had skates on and I didn't, he was two inches taller than me. A glimpse into the future?
Against a very good left-handed pitcher who plays travel baseball for Hoffman Estates, Michael hit a ball almost to the parking lot yesterday. I love watching M 'n' m compete. I love watching them play music. I love watching them do just about anything except cop an attitude and not pick up after themselves and not put away their clean clothes. The clean clothes one really bugs me.
Rickey Henderson stole 130 bases in 1982 and 1406 in his career. Lou Brock is second with 938 career stolen bases, and Vince Coleman was no slouch, but Rickey was the man; he was my favorite player when I was a kid. He had longevity and quite a personality too. In the early '80s, the Oakland A's discovered a $1 million accounting error. They investigated and determined Rickey was the reason. The GM asked him about a $1 million bonus he had received and Rickey said instead of cashing it, he framed it and hung it on his wall.
Back to the roller rink: When Michael had skates on and I didn't, he was two inches taller than me. A glimpse into the future?
Against a very good left-handed pitcher who plays travel baseball for Hoffman Estates, Michael hit a ball almost to the parking lot yesterday. I love watching M 'n' m compete. I love watching them play music. I love watching them do just about anything except cop an attitude and not pick up after themselves and not put away their clean clothes. The clean clothes one really bugs me.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
#313
I don't know yet if M 'n' m will seek too much attention from friends and peers, or too little. Of course, they may be perfectly balanced, in a perfect world. If they seek too little attention, I mean they'll error on the timid, quiet, 'background' side of things, versus the more memorable 'first-to-try,' 'center-of-attention' people (who may also be needy and self-destructive). Gosh, I sound uncomplimentary of the extremes and I don't mean to; we need both kinds of behavior, and sometimes predominantly so; acute caution may be called for one minute, and fuck-all ass-kicking the next, and teams, families, and friends need members who can naturally and powerfully bring the extremes. Of course, humans are too complex to bin and label so simply; to some degree, we're all likely either/or depending on the circumstances, timid in some ways, bold in others. But in retrospect, I mostly regret the times I was timid. In my life, I have chickened out aplenty. And so I appreciate the following I heard in a podcast today....
When asked, "What advice would you give your younger self?" Stephen J. Dubner (of Freakonomics fame) said this, and I want M 'n' m to hear it, especially if they tend to be a 'fraidy cat more often than over-confident: "My advice is pretty simple, don't be scared. I was just, ya know, there are a lot of things I did not do, a lot of experiences I never tried, a lot of people I never met or hung out with because I was in some form intimidated or scared and, look, I still deal with that all the time, and it's not like I've solved that problem, but that is what I'd go back and say to my younger self, is that almost always, the thing that you fear is ridiculous, and it always plays into what psychologists call the spotlight effect, like, 'everybody must be caring about what I do' when the fact is nobody gives a crap what I do, so that's what I'd say, don't be scared."
Now, as always, the caveats... I was scared to do drugs as a teenager (not alcohol, but drugs), and I would still get panicky today at the sight of them I'm sure. Which ones? I don't know... mushrooms, pills, powders I might've seen at parties or clubs, whatever, and even if I experimented with anything legal in some states now, it was years after everyone else. My point: It's okay to be scared of drugs. M 'n' m, I'm talking to you! But don't be afraid of important shit like challenge, growth, conflict, emotion, failure, success. And be aware of the spotlight effect — the phenomenon in which people think they're noticed more than they really are, because, let's face it, one is, in point of fact and reality, in the center of one's own world; we only have one physical perspective, windshield, set of eyes. The spotlight effect is useful to grasp and remember because if you ever have social anxiety, this awareness dampens those insecurities and people-pleasing energies that can make you sweaty and bewildered — and over-talkative and over-trying and annoying — in social situations. Obviously, I speak from experience. Hey, the biggest weakness is pretending you have none.
"I don't do drugs, I am drugs."
— Salvador Dali
"I did some drugs, but not much truthfully, not as much as most people at that age, I don't have the nervous system to handle it."
— David Foster Wallace
When asked, "What advice would you give your younger self?" Stephen J. Dubner (of Freakonomics fame) said this, and I want M 'n' m to hear it, especially if they tend to be a 'fraidy cat more often than over-confident: "My advice is pretty simple, don't be scared. I was just, ya know, there are a lot of things I did not do, a lot of experiences I never tried, a lot of people I never met or hung out with because I was in some form intimidated or scared and, look, I still deal with that all the time, and it's not like I've solved that problem, but that is what I'd go back and say to my younger self, is that almost always, the thing that you fear is ridiculous, and it always plays into what psychologists call the spotlight effect, like, 'everybody must be caring about what I do' when the fact is nobody gives a crap what I do, so that's what I'd say, don't be scared."
Now, as always, the caveats... I was scared to do drugs as a teenager (not alcohol, but drugs), and I would still get panicky today at the sight of them I'm sure. Which ones? I don't know... mushrooms, pills, powders I might've seen at parties or clubs, whatever, and even if I experimented with anything legal in some states now, it was years after everyone else. My point: It's okay to be scared of drugs. M 'n' m, I'm talking to you! But don't be afraid of important shit like challenge, growth, conflict, emotion, failure, success. And be aware of the spotlight effect — the phenomenon in which people think they're noticed more than they really are, because, let's face it, one is, in point of fact and reality, in the center of one's own world; we only have one physical perspective, windshield, set of eyes. The spotlight effect is useful to grasp and remember because if you ever have social anxiety, this awareness dampens those insecurities and people-pleasing energies that can make you sweaty and bewildered — and over-talkative and over-trying and annoying — in social situations. Obviously, I speak from experience. Hey, the biggest weakness is pretending you have none.
"I don't do drugs, I am drugs."
— Salvador Dali
"I did some drugs, but not much truthfully, not as much as most people at that age, I don't have the nervous system to handle it."
— David Foster Wallace
Sunday, September 18, 2016
#312
When you aren't
making millions on Wall Street, but instead find yourself at Goodwill
shopping for 79 cent paperbacks, you occasionally spot a gleaming jewel, although it's brilliance may be hidden — an unfamiliar title or author — until you take it by the spine, examine it, sample it, and go for it; it's an investment (79 cents feels like shoplifting but time is precious), and then later set upon it with knife and
fork — or pencil; I underline, bracket, and star — to lustily feast and confirm it's something very rich indeed. A treasure. From Goodwill. Cheapskate? Sure. But I tell myself it's also very green. Book recycling. And some titles are out of print. My latest discovery is a gem called Logbook for Grace by Robert Cushman Murphy. It's a scientist writing to his new bride, Grace, while collecting specimens aboard a whaling brig in 1912. The writing is at times humorous, tender, lyrical, gritty, and as good as Melville. And Megan's middle
name is Grace.
I am a world champion lunch-maker. School lunches. I'm a pro, a master, a gold-fuckin'-medalist, whatever, M 'n' m get awesome lunches. I pack 'em while slamming coffee and maybe doing a few countertop push-ups. But usually not the push-ups. Feels good to hit a task out of the park so early in the morning. Even if it's just cramming sugar-laden, over-processed, half-plastic crap into two containers. Megan's goes in a cute, pink, zippered, nylon thingy, and Michael is a brown-paper-bag man. Inside both, quality, variety, abundance. Some of it's fresh, some of it will look the same a thousand years from now in a landfill. I never get complaints. Except from Meg. But she grumbles about everything, and that's only a 50% customer disapproval rating. Better than the airlines. I ate hot lunch as a kid. Plastic pizza, rubber tacos, hockey-puck burgers, and once — this is true, I shit you not — I ate a raw chicken nugget. I gagged and heaved but it stayed down. I remember the sensation of my stomach turning and my mouth undergoing a pre-vomit watering, once I realized the nugget's chewiness had a perfect explanation. But I didn't puke it back up. Great story! Oh, thanks :)
Michael wears a shirt for five minutes then throws it in his dirty clothes. Of course, that will change when I stop doing his laundry. My clothes can practically walk and talk on their own before I toss 'em in the washer. (Not true. Mostly not true.)
We had MTV. Now they have YouTube. It is exactly a zillion times more nonsense than we had. Although, some of it's good and useful; I'm on YouTube a lot also, for TED talks, lectures, interviews; content that's a far cry from the unimpressive stuff M 'n' m watch, imitate, and howl at. And the stuff they watch only gets like a hundred million views... must not be very good.
I am a world champion lunch-maker. School lunches. I'm a pro, a master, a gold-fuckin'-medalist, whatever, M 'n' m get awesome lunches. I pack 'em while slamming coffee and maybe doing a few countertop push-ups. But usually not the push-ups. Feels good to hit a task out of the park so early in the morning. Even if it's just cramming sugar-laden, over-processed, half-plastic crap into two containers. Megan's goes in a cute, pink, zippered, nylon thingy, and Michael is a brown-paper-bag man. Inside both, quality, variety, abundance. Some of it's fresh, some of it will look the same a thousand years from now in a landfill. I never get complaints. Except from Meg. But she grumbles about everything, and that's only a 50% customer disapproval rating. Better than the airlines. I ate hot lunch as a kid. Plastic pizza, rubber tacos, hockey-puck burgers, and once — this is true, I shit you not — I ate a raw chicken nugget. I gagged and heaved but it stayed down. I remember the sensation of my stomach turning and my mouth undergoing a pre-vomit watering, once I realized the nugget's chewiness had a perfect explanation. But I didn't puke it back up. Great story! Oh, thanks :)
Michael wears a shirt for five minutes then throws it in his dirty clothes. Of course, that will change when I stop doing his laundry. My clothes can practically walk and talk on their own before I toss 'em in the washer. (Not true. Mostly not true.)
We had MTV. Now they have YouTube. It is exactly a zillion times more nonsense than we had. Although, some of it's good and useful; I'm on YouTube a lot also, for TED talks, lectures, interviews; content that's a far cry from the unimpressive stuff M 'n' m watch, imitate, and howl at. And the stuff they watch only gets like a hundred million views... must not be very good.
Friday, September 16, 2016
#311
311 (pronounced "three-eleven") is the name of a favorite band from my college days. They were popular then, a million years ago, so long ago it's a marvel they had electric guitars, steel drums, music videos. Not funny? Agreed. I'm just smarting from my birthday a week ago. And I need more Rogaine. Here's a little trivia: 311 is named after the police code for indecent exposure in
Omaha, Nebraska, after the original guitarist for the band was arrested
for streaking. People don't streak like they used to. As a parent, this makes me happy. As a person, it makes me sad. Absurdity is part of life, and blatant reminders of this are helpful.
Advice for M 'n' m: You don't have to scratch every itch, and feed every craving. Don't scratch a mosquito bite until it bleeds; don't eat candy until you puke; applies to daring, dangerous misadventures, drugs and alcohol, unrequited love, crabby people and people who don't reciprocate respect, etcetera etcetera.... More unasked-for advice: Lean into things that scare you, at least some of them. Talk to that crush. Push yourself, express yourself, make yourself uncomfortable. Suffer (once in a while, because the sweetest, best moments are the ones that follow busting your ass; I have moments of laziness, I have to face and fight this one every day). More UFA (Unasked-For Advice): Failure is a great teacher. You learn more from wrecks, wipeouts, and defeats. Smooth sailing and coasting victories are exactly zero percent of the best training (think BUDS, Olympic training, Russian ballet, the movie Whiplash, whatever). One of Jeanette's favorite quotes: "A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner." MUFA (More Unasked-For Advice): Sometimes there isn't an option, there's isn't a choice, you can't skip it, you can't bow out, it's what you need to do, you know it, SO GET ON WITH IT! The sooner you do it, the sooner you can stop doing it. 99% is a bitch.
"Things work out as long as you are as relentless as the problems are."
— Brady Corbet
"Children are expensive"
— Me
Advice for M 'n' m: You don't have to scratch every itch, and feed every craving. Don't scratch a mosquito bite until it bleeds; don't eat candy until you puke; applies to daring, dangerous misadventures, drugs and alcohol, unrequited love, crabby people and people who don't reciprocate respect, etcetera etcetera.... More unasked-for advice: Lean into things that scare you, at least some of them. Talk to that crush. Push yourself, express yourself, make yourself uncomfortable. Suffer (once in a while, because the sweetest, best moments are the ones that follow busting your ass; I have moments of laziness, I have to face and fight this one every day). More UFA (Unasked-For Advice): Failure is a great teacher. You learn more from wrecks, wipeouts, and defeats. Smooth sailing and coasting victories are exactly zero percent of the best training (think BUDS, Olympic training, Russian ballet, the movie Whiplash, whatever). One of Jeanette's favorite quotes: "A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner." MUFA (More Unasked-For Advice): Sometimes there isn't an option, there's isn't a choice, you can't skip it, you can't bow out, it's what you need to do, you know it, SO GET ON WITH IT! The sooner you do it, the sooner you can stop doing it. 99% is a bitch.
"Things work out as long as you are as relentless as the problems are."
— Brady Corbet
"Children are expensive"
— Me
#310
So I wasn't great at describing parenthood in 100 words (#309). If I had a do-over, I'd put a phrase stolen from Vanity Fair in my opening sentence: "God hands you a soft, little, crying, pooping,
attention-sucking vortex." That is precisely what you get. And thank you, because it's awesome. Except M 'n' m weren't very little; they were 10-pound newborns; think bowling ball, sack of potatoes, watermelon, something you'd prefer not to carry around all day long. But that's how it starts. And it works, because exhaustion and awesomeness are often bedfellows. Parenthood, the beginning. "It's a time of long days but fast years." I stole that line too, from my friends Greg and Katie.
"Everything has been said, but not everything has been said superbly, and even if it had, everything must be said freshly again and again."
— Paul Horgan
As an adult, I enjoy reading what 'has been said superby' which I take to mean 'the classics.' Funny how they're awfully dull when we're young. Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Dostoevsky, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Steinbeck, all dreadfully boring. Now I read them for pleasure. I've got "A Moveable Feast" by Hemingway in my backpack today. Last year I cover-to-covered Moby Dick. It's a beast, but remarkable. I savored parts of it like steak-lovers do buttery, seared ribeyes, the fat and meat perfectly marbled (a nice analogy for a good piece of writing, actually). When it comes to literature, I finally see what all the hubbub is about. Not so with other 'adult' things, like the pleasing bouquet of a California Cabernet, or a rare Kentucky bourbon. Those don't trip my trigger. What will M 'n' m gravitate to? Will they be auto or art or cigar aficionados? Coffee connoisseurs? Gamblers, fitness nuts, divers, world-travelers, yogis, poets, pilots, gardeners? Will they study and collect Japanese tea sets or 19th century shotguns or ancient Pompeian phallic art? (Yeah, not the last one I hope.) I could see M 'n' m collecting old, creepy-looking daguerreotypes. Michael used to love "Five Nights at Freddy's." I'm not a fan, but I see the horror genre is alive and well. Papa Mike still talks about the night he went to The Exorcist in the theater. Paraphrasing Papa, "People were crying, hysterical, freaking out; other people walked out in a mind-blown daze," I bet they were in a daze; it was the early seventies. Anyway, where were we? — I hope M 'n' m are themselves, original. I suspect eventually, we all get there. But why not find it sooner than later?
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart, and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.... Stay hungry, stay foolish."
— Steve Jobs (who, we like to brag, called our house one time, to talk to
Papa Mike and set up a meeting with him)
"I think whatever you read... affects your mind and your sensibility, and even your body in some ways and your senses... reading poetry and writing poetry has... made it second nature for me to pay attention to the sound of words and their arrangement in a sentence or on a page and their relation to each other in a way that reading ordinary fiction doesn’t encourage... poetry, once you internalize it, changes how you view language, you tend to see individual words more as objects, rather than beads on a string or things that just carry information. You’re more conscious of the music of the language, and the individual notes of the words.... And unabashed and unashamed honesty, just in every aspect of my life that was available to me, was important.
— Russell Banks
"Everything has been said, but not everything has been said superbly, and even if it had, everything must be said freshly again and again."
— Paul Horgan
As an adult, I enjoy reading what 'has been said superby' which I take to mean 'the classics.' Funny how they're awfully dull when we're young. Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Dostoevsky, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Steinbeck, all dreadfully boring. Now I read them for pleasure. I've got "A Moveable Feast" by Hemingway in my backpack today. Last year I cover-to-covered Moby Dick. It's a beast, but remarkable. I savored parts of it like steak-lovers do buttery, seared ribeyes, the fat and meat perfectly marbled (a nice analogy for a good piece of writing, actually). When it comes to literature, I finally see what all the hubbub is about. Not so with other 'adult' things, like the pleasing bouquet of a California Cabernet, or a rare Kentucky bourbon. Those don't trip my trigger. What will M 'n' m gravitate to? Will they be auto or art or cigar aficionados? Coffee connoisseurs? Gamblers, fitness nuts, divers, world-travelers, yogis, poets, pilots, gardeners? Will they study and collect Japanese tea sets or 19th century shotguns or ancient Pompeian phallic art? (Yeah, not the last one I hope.) I could see M 'n' m collecting old, creepy-looking daguerreotypes. Michael used to love "Five Nights at Freddy's." I'm not a fan, but I see the horror genre is alive and well. Papa Mike still talks about the night he went to The Exorcist in the theater. Paraphrasing Papa, "People were crying, hysterical, freaking out; other people walked out in a mind-blown daze," I bet they were in a daze; it was the early seventies. Anyway, where were we? — I hope M 'n' m are themselves, original. I suspect eventually, we all get there. But why not find it sooner than later?
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart, and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.... Stay hungry, stay foolish."
— Steve Jobs (who, we like to brag, called our house one time, to talk to
Papa Mike and set up a meeting with him)
"I think whatever you read... affects your mind and your sensibility, and even your body in some ways and your senses... reading poetry and writing poetry has... made it second nature for me to pay attention to the sound of words and their arrangement in a sentence or on a page and their relation to each other in a way that reading ordinary fiction doesn’t encourage... poetry, once you internalize it, changes how you view language, you tend to see individual words more as objects, rather than beads on a string or things that just carry information. You’re more conscious of the music of the language, and the individual notes of the words.... And unabashed and unashamed honesty, just in every aspect of my life that was available to me, was important.
— Russell Banks
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Thursday, September 8, 2016
#309
For 13 years – since Michael was born – I've been trying to describe fatherhood. My literary powers are as yet insufficient, which is a little disheartening after 13 years of practice. I wanted to be a professional athlete, also. At least I'm not full of shit when I tell M 'n' to m to pursue their dreams, ideas, and creative energies. Go for it, kids. Do creative work, build stuff, throw paint, throw music, throw words. Spin your wheels. Do donuts in the high school parking lot in your 1984 Buick Century after basketball practice with fresh snow falling... actually, don't do that. But challenge yourself creatively. If it sucks, who cares. So I was thinking: If writing about fatherhood for 13 years is one extreme, let's try the other. Describe fatherhood in 100 words or less. Go....
God hands you a football. No shit, it's the size of a football and wrapped and shaped like one, and striped even — red, white, and blue in the hospital nursery blanket — and it's slightly soft and deflated the way Tom Brady and the Patriots cheatingly arrange things in their favor. Life is not without sad, unnecessary cheating. Your 'football' is only minutes old and you wonder if poor parenting is to blame for this kind of honorless cheating that you yourself have probably perpetrated too often and rationalized away with no regard for karmic consequence. Whatever, now’s not the time. Forget all that and play football! There is noise. Lots of it. Inside your head, as always, but the game around you is loud; there is grunting and impressive crying. And there is great support and suggestion. Or is it criticism? The football, don't forget the football! It's in your hands, hold it, but gently; don't drop it. And advance it! Advance and protect the football! That's it, the goal. Very simple. There is exhilaration. This is a big play, and you're the guy. Thank God you have teammates and blockers. They aren't perfect and neither are you; you’re highly flawed and this has the feel of a thing that highlights flaws. Awesome. Yes, things start happening that weren't considered when the play was drawn up. There is untidiness and chaos. You feel threatened, and though your instincts flare, and time slows momentarily, you sense it speeding up again. There are opponents; they are big and moving fast. Things blur. Thank God you're wearing a helmet and pads. You're wearing a helmet and pads, right? And don't forget the play. Fuck. The play? What play?! You look for a hole to run through, and then... the football is gone. What happened? You didn’t fumble it; you didn’t pass it; you aren't sure, but you know it's still here, somewhere, the game, the play, it isn't over....
Oh man, I failed; that’s 330 words. I always overwrite. And it's football season; my imagination wouldn't go further.
God hands you a football. No shit, it's the size of a football and wrapped and shaped like one, and striped even — red, white, and blue in the hospital nursery blanket — and it's slightly soft and deflated the way Tom Brady and the Patriots cheatingly arrange things in their favor. Life is not without sad, unnecessary cheating. Your 'football' is only minutes old and you wonder if poor parenting is to blame for this kind of honorless cheating that you yourself have probably perpetrated too often and rationalized away with no regard for karmic consequence. Whatever, now’s not the time. Forget all that and play football! There is noise. Lots of it. Inside your head, as always, but the game around you is loud; there is grunting and impressive crying. And there is great support and suggestion. Or is it criticism? The football, don't forget the football! It's in your hands, hold it, but gently; don't drop it. And advance it! Advance and protect the football! That's it, the goal. Very simple. There is exhilaration. This is a big play, and you're the guy. Thank God you have teammates and blockers. They aren't perfect and neither are you; you’re highly flawed and this has the feel of a thing that highlights flaws. Awesome. Yes, things start happening that weren't considered when the play was drawn up. There is untidiness and chaos. You feel threatened, and though your instincts flare, and time slows momentarily, you sense it speeding up again. There are opponents; they are big and moving fast. Things blur. Thank God you're wearing a helmet and pads. You're wearing a helmet and pads, right? And don't forget the play. Fuck. The play? What play?! You look for a hole to run through, and then... the football is gone. What happened? You didn’t fumble it; you didn’t pass it; you aren't sure, but you know it's still here, somewhere, the game, the play, it isn't over....
Oh man, I failed; that’s 330 words. I always overwrite. And it's football season; my imagination wouldn't go further.
Here's some advice from John McPhee: "Writing is selection. Just to start a
piece of writing you have to choose one word and only one from more than
a million in the language. Now keep going. What is your next word? Your
next sentence, paragraph, section, chapter? Your next ball of fact. You
select what goes in and you decide what stays out. At base you have
only one criterion: If something interests you, it goes in — if not, it
stays out. That’s a crude way to assess things, but it’s all you’ve got. ... Ideally, a piece of writing should grow to whatever length is sustained by its selected material — that much and no more. Among the three or four dozen pieces that Woody Allen has contributed to The New Yorker,
the first one seemed to his editor, Roger Angell, to contain an
overabundance of funny lines. He told Allen that even if the jokes were
individually hilarious they tended cumulatively to diminish the net
effect. He said he thought the humor would be improved if Allen were to
leave some of them out. Sculptors
address the deletion of material in their own analogous way.
Michelangelo: 'The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows.'
Michelangelo: 'Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is
the task of the sculptor to discover it.' Michelangelo, loosely, as we
can imagine him with six tons of Carrara marble, a mallet, a point
chisel, a pitching tool, a tooth chisel, a claw chisel, rasps, rifflers,
and a bush hammer: 'I’m just taking away what doesn’t belong there.' And
inevitably we have come to Ernest Hemingway and the tip of the
iceberg — or, how to fashion critical theory from one of the world’s most
venerable clichés. 'If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is
writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the
writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as
strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement
of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.'"
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
#308
Megan is officially a cellist, joining her brother. Her decision was cute and predictable. I often mention her adoration of Michael; she's proud to follow him this way. Michael, also predictably, has pretended not to notice. He's annoyed. His aloofness with Megan is a constant frustration for me, which is unsurprising since I trip over myself defending and doting on Meg-Pie. In this case though, I respect Michael's reaction. He's a bit young to want a pupil/protege, least of all his sister, and there's the part about his thunder being stolen. He's worked hard to play well, and we celebrate his music and orchestra events. I'll talk to him, urge him to keep the right perspective, namely that Megan's sky-high opinion of everything he does only elevates him. She thinks he's solid gold and why would anyone disagree?
I've been coaching for several years now. In a way, I'm paying it forward. Grandma and Papa were co-skippers during my first two basketball seasons. How cool is that? Two seasons with both parents as coaches (Grandma Barb was the most qualified; she played basketball in high school whereas Papa was a baseball and track star). And Papa coached several teams and seasons after that, baseball and basketball. So I'm lucky. I had other coaches, and other sports like flag football and soccer, but my folks were supportive and involved and, in my mind, left me with an enormous debt to pay forward to their grandchildren. And this, of course, is utter bullshit since I love coaching and it's entirely selfish and has nothing to do with debt or obligation. As expected, it's about the most rewarding thing I've ever undertaken. The feedback I get is positive, and genuinely so from players and parents alike; I don't think I'll ever stop. This means I'll have a roster without M 'n' m soon; they'll go to high school and fly the nest. Maybe coaching will stave off a creeping, ornery depression that threatens when they're gone. I'll only coach what I know from years and years of playing (baseball and basketball) and I'll bring an unusual optimism and confidence. My coaching philosophy is very simple: "No one cares what you know until they know how much you care." Amen.
Michael is only in 8th grade, but I'm starting to feel "the looming expanse of college," to steal a phrase from Vanity Fair. The looming expense of college is a concern also, but the expanse of it – which I interpret as the vastness of possibilities, opportunities, freedoms, decisions, momentums, inertias, trajectories, influences, and so on that college-aged people are faced with – is something that has my full attention. The college years are very formative. Education, career, and youthful energy are important. And so is self-discovery, which is another path we end up on whether we like it or not, when we're 17, 18... 20, 21 years old. And this one's a path that keeps twisting and turning and teaching – and throwing light where we want it and also where we don't – until we're 40, at least (I'll be 41 next week). It's all approaching very fast for Michael. Hey man, live and learn.
I read this in Vanity Fair about Rihanna, the popular singer and songwriter: "Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty 27 years ago in Bridgewood, Barbados, grew up in a family so close-knit that her report card had to be taken around to every aunt and uncle, and if she didn't take it to them, they came over to the see it. She says that everybody knew how well every child did in school. You couldn't hide your failures; you had to face them. She memorized textbooks (her mother was very strict about grades) and played sports with her two younger brothers. But from an early age she was obsessed with music...." I know M 'n' m like Rihanna's music, and I love these details about her. I agree report cards are super-important, and if a certain spotlessness isn't attainable, improvement certainly is, and accountability, not excuses, is expected after letdowns; I was raised this way, too. And I love young Rihanna's closeness with extended family, her work ethic, and her well-roundedness (family, school, sports, and music).
I've been coaching for several years now. In a way, I'm paying it forward. Grandma and Papa were co-skippers during my first two basketball seasons. How cool is that? Two seasons with both parents as coaches (Grandma Barb was the most qualified; she played basketball in high school whereas Papa was a baseball and track star). And Papa coached several teams and seasons after that, baseball and basketball. So I'm lucky. I had other coaches, and other sports like flag football and soccer, but my folks were supportive and involved and, in my mind, left me with an enormous debt to pay forward to their grandchildren. And this, of course, is utter bullshit since I love coaching and it's entirely selfish and has nothing to do with debt or obligation. As expected, it's about the most rewarding thing I've ever undertaken. The feedback I get is positive, and genuinely so from players and parents alike; I don't think I'll ever stop. This means I'll have a roster without M 'n' m soon; they'll go to high school and fly the nest. Maybe coaching will stave off a creeping, ornery depression that threatens when they're gone. I'll only coach what I know from years and years of playing (baseball and basketball) and I'll bring an unusual optimism and confidence. My coaching philosophy is very simple: "No one cares what you know until they know how much you care." Amen.
Michael is only in 8th grade, but I'm starting to feel "the looming expanse of college," to steal a phrase from Vanity Fair. The looming expense of college is a concern also, but the expanse of it – which I interpret as the vastness of possibilities, opportunities, freedoms, decisions, momentums, inertias, trajectories, influences, and so on that college-aged people are faced with – is something that has my full attention. The college years are very formative. Education, career, and youthful energy are important. And so is self-discovery, which is another path we end up on whether we like it or not, when we're 17, 18... 20, 21 years old. And this one's a path that keeps twisting and turning and teaching – and throwing light where we want it and also where we don't – until we're 40, at least (I'll be 41 next week). It's all approaching very fast for Michael. Hey man, live and learn.
I read this in Vanity Fair about Rihanna, the popular singer and songwriter: "Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty 27 years ago in Bridgewood, Barbados, grew up in a family so close-knit that her report card had to be taken around to every aunt and uncle, and if she didn't take it to them, they came over to the see it. She says that everybody knew how well every child did in school. You couldn't hide your failures; you had to face them. She memorized textbooks (her mother was very strict about grades) and played sports with her two younger brothers. But from an early age she was obsessed with music...." I know M 'n' m like Rihanna's music, and I love these details about her. I agree report cards are super-important, and if a certain spotlessness isn't attainable, improvement certainly is, and accountability, not excuses, is expected after letdowns; I was raised this way, too. And I love young Rihanna's closeness with extended family, her work ethic, and her well-roundedness (family, school, sports, and music).
Thursday, September 1, 2016
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