Crushed

#367

Megan came to work with me Friday. Michael joins me too, on occasion. I love that they love to visit; they leave a mark on the place for me, memories, fun moments at work with them. This is good; it's where I spend tens of hours every week. It reveals one of my flaws: I don't compartmentalize the focuses and forces in my life well. They all run together. Maybe it's common, maybe it's a strength; I don't know; there's only one mind I'm truly inside of, truly privy to, and it's my own, my own thinking, sensitivites, awarenesses; this is the primary and primal burden and blessing of being human. We are pilots, captains of precisely one craft, our own. We're among a sea of other vessels, of course. Do we navigate kindly, play well with others? Do we race, compete, collaborate, cruise? Where are we all headed anyway? Sadly, I know the press, the media, would prefer you believe everyone else is a battleship, and every day is either the America's Cup or the Battle of Midway.

So M 'n' m and I enjoy my office together, the techno- goodies and labs, and the incredible city around, above, and below us, glass towers, steel and concrete, the Chicago river, trains, traffic, streams of people, countless storefronts and restaurants, efforts and energies of every kind.

Yesterday, M 'n' m and I drove to Branson, Missouri. Long drive from Chicago, but it's worth it for baseball! Michael's season-ending tournament. I've never been here; reminds me of Wisconsin Dells. Michael stays with the team in a cool barracks-like complex surrounded by fields. So Meg and I are roommates at the Marriott. So far, so good, but we both had noxious gas last night. Caused a little tension. Papa Mike joins us tonight. Life is good. (And the gas war will surely escalate with a third and formidable entrant. Megan's no slouch, by the way. She isn't out-gunned by any stretch. And she started it.)

"Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what to think."
     — David Foster Wallace

"Yet in an age of ceaseless sensationalism, pseudoscience, and a relentless race for shortcuts, quick answers, and silver bullets, knowing what to think seems increasingly challenging."
     — Maria Popova

Megan doesn't want this poster...

... for her room. Good. We saw it at Target. We love Target. I don't think Meg's watched Suicide Squad, actually. She prefers Guardians of the Galaxy, as do I. And dads prefer their daughters' not date The Joker, especially Jared Leto's and Heath Ledger's renditions. And "Daddy's Lil Monster" shirts in women's sizes are disturbing. And everyone knows fishnets and baseball bats don't go together. Nuke LaLoosh wore a garter belt under his uniform, but he was a pitcher.

#366

I like picking up Megan. When she hopped in the car yesterday, I was stricken with an un-rare, unsurprising manic moment of needing to express to her how much I love her. At this point in our lives together, we both roll our eyes, but I continue, dauntless, like this: "Meg, I hope you have a baby boy someday, and then maybe you'll finally understand how much I love you. That might do the trick. You know, the mother-son / father-daughter thing; they're cliches for a reason; a baby boy, a son, that might wipe the windshield for you, so to speak, for a clear view of this kind of eternal sunrise." Meg was confused. Hell, so was I; I wasn't making sense. Then I remembered the puppies. Meg is helping a friend with a litter of Rottweilers. They are brand-spanking-new; their eyes, unopened; their stubby, little legs, useless (although Meg said some can army crawl). Rather indifferently, I thought, Meg told me the boys push the girls away from Mom's milk if it must be fought over. I thought, the male-female dynamic is consistent across all life forms... but then I thought of Praying Mantises. Females get the last laugh there, for sure. And women live longer, have better hair, and in the '70s and '80s looked less hilarious, than men, with perms. See, being female has its advantages. But the Praying Mantis thing, I had to look up: Do they always kill the males? That's not very nice, girls.

From the internet: "Yes, it's true, female praying mantises do cannibalize their sex partners. In some instances, she'll even behead the poor chap before they've consummated their relationship. As it turns out, a male mantis is an even better lover when his brain, which controls inhibition, is detached from his abdominal ganglion, which controls the actual act of copulation. But most instances of sexual suicide in mantises occur in the confines of a laboratory setting. In the wild, scientists believe the male partner gets munched on less than 30% of the time."

Wow. Things I want to unlearn. And wouldn't that be sexual homicide, not suicide? Does the male mantis know the sacrifice he's about to make (hence, it's called suicide)? Like he gets his affairs in order, then takes one for the team. For his unborn kids. I know they're bugs, but the whole thing sounds more like murder to me. Anyway, back to Meg, puppies, and expressing love. I said, "Actually, Meg, I love you more than you love those puppies!" I thought I'd nailed it! "Can you believe it?!" I added, gushing! Meg said, "Yeah, because sometimes I don't like those puppies because they smell." She's a little cynical, but honest. And she knows my game.

Three Little Quotes

Two about a pair of warring forces – in me and my life, at least – referred to here as enthusiasm and discouragement:

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
     ― Winston Churchill

"You can measure a man by the opposition it takes to discourage him."
     ― Robert C. Savage

And another one about poets:

“Poets do not 'fit' into society, not because a place is denied them but because they do not take their 'places' seriously. They openly see its roles as theatrical, its styles as poses, its clothing costumes, its rules conventional, its crises arranged, its conflicts performed and its metaphysics ideological.”
     ― James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

This is so good, I have to share the whole thing...

... from Men's Journal magazine. Q & A with John Lithgow. Advice from his father, learning from criticism, enthusiasm for traveling and other cultures, the eagerness to please, young marriage, thoughts on vanity and money... it all resonated hugely with me. M 'n' m and I aren't movie stars, but still...

What's the best advice you ever received?
My dad told me something that was, in a way, negative and cautionary. He was a very estimable producer of classical theater, and he said, "Listen to the audience, and listen to critics. It's often very hard because sometimes audiences hate you and critics pan you. But listen to them — they're the ones you truly learn from. Everybody else has an agenda."
What adventure changed your life?
I joined a summer travel camp in France after my junior year of high school. It was my first time abroad, and I can trace my enthusiasm for traveling and other cultures to that summer. It was also when I was a serious painter; I spent the whole summer painting French landscapes and town squares, and I made out with my first girlfriend.
What role most shaped your career?
There have been a few. I won a Tony Award for my Broadway debut, in 1973, in a play called The Changing Room. That was a gigantic life-changer. Ten years after that, it was The World According to Garp, and then Third Rock from the Sun about 10 years after that. Also, I would say that The Crown has been a big life-changer.
In it, you play Winston Churchill. Which historical figure do you identify with?
Shakespeare. Theater is the path for everything I've done, so he's my man. He was an actor but also a creator. If he were alive today, he would also be making movies and TV. He did everything. He wrote Hamlet, but he also wrote The Comedy of Errors, a farce. He wrote Titus Andronicus, a horror film if there ever was one.
What have you learned from dressing in drag?
Every time you're scared to do something, you should do it. Whenever I've felt that, it's been a colossal breakthrough. When I was in a Boy Scout troop at age 12 or 13, we put on a show at the end of camp. It was a cornball version of the old melodrama of the villain, the hero, and the damsel in distress, where the damsel is tied to a railroad track and the hero saves her just in time. And which role do you think I was cast in? I remember thinking, "Oh my God, this might be a serious mistake." An Eagle Scout untied me, carried me off, and then fell on his ass. All the Scouts roared with laughter. It was like an explosion, and I remember being elated by it. I was a shy kid and an inept and clumsy Scout who didn't earn many merit badges, but, boy, that was the night I became a star.
You often play the bad guy, too. Is there a villainous side to you?
My eagerness to please sometimes gets the better of me. If you go through your life being completely truthful, everybody will hate you, and something I deeply fear is being hated. This comes from being a third child and living in 10 different places growing up. I was always arriving in a new school on the first day of school and was just innately fearful of conflict. You get very good at winning people over quickly. But that can also make you a little bit devious because you're constantly persuading people that you're utterly likable.
What's the trait you most despise in others?
Hypocrisy. I'm having a lot of trouble with contemporary politics because of this. I have a taste for horror, and right now our politics is accommodating that taste.
You've been married 35 years. Any advice?
Don't get married too young, for starters. Both my wife and I did that. Neither of our first marriages lasted because neither of us quite knew who we were at that age, in our early twenties. Wait until you're a grown-up. And marry somebody whose company you prefer to anybody else's in the world.
What have you learned about money?
Not a damn thing. And my wife is an economic historian. You would think she is very crafty with money, but as it turns out, the shoemaker's children go barefoot. Money is just a low priority for me. I'm more interested in good work than a big bank account.
How should a man handle vanity as he ages?
I'm as vain as the next person, but I've made so much fun of myself over the years, and that's very salutary as you grow older. One of my favorite moments from Third Rock was a scene in which we all ended up in a hot tub drinking martinis. Something outrageous happened, and my character was shocked by it. So I stood up to my full height out of the tub in a tiny little bright orange Speedo and yelled, "Have you no shame!" Well, I gave up shame years ago.

#365

I strategically over-bought footwear for Michael when he passed through size 11. He's a 12 now, and a few shoes I spent hundreds on are suddenly homeless and perfect-fitting (for me) and – the only gamble in my scheme – untrashed. Well played. Thank you.

The Kobe Bryant purple pair are a bit gaudy, but they're a very nice, light, athletic shoe. Too bad I don't play basketball anymore. A reason to start up again? Anyone know a 40-and-over league with games next to a hospital? I love playing basketball. I miss it like youth. Michael might go out for the high school soccer team despite a pretty glaring inexperience. He's not two-left-footed – how do you disparage a soccer player; I don't know the lingo? – or void of skills or anything; he's just low, as in none, on 'real' game experience. I hope he goes for it; it's never to late to start, especially at 14! The days of running and competing against strangers in refereed, win-or-lose, 'official' contests are fleeting... from my current vantage point anyway; although I played softball this week with my old team and we smoked some young guys. They weren't very good; a few wore soccer cleats, actually. No one's good at everything.

Not playing basketball but still writing... I feel like pushing for 400 posts now; I've been prolific lately; that's a good word for a hack to self-describe and commend effort (not quality) and feel good about himself. So there it is; I've been prolific.

M 'n' m are headed to Minnesota for their annual summer week (or two) visit. My parents and my sister's family are there. I'm grateful the kids love it and are loved and spoiled up nort' der in Minnah-soo-ta. We are lucky.

Megan finished up another softball season. She likes to pitch, and is tall and long and athletic (even if a little whiney when she doesn't get the calls or bounces). Maybe she'll be the next Monica Abbot. During her senior season in college, Abbot set the record for the most strikeouts in a Division I softball season and became the NCAA Division I all-time leader in career wins, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, games started, and games pitched (that's from Wikipedia). She's an Olympian too. Monica threw the fastest recorded softball pitch at 77mph. According to the math, it would take a 77mph softball pitch the same amount of time to reach home plate as a 114mph baseball pitch. The fastest recorded baseball pitch is 105mph by Aroldis Chapman. FYI, an average highly competitive softball pitch is around 72mph which is the equivalent of a 110mph baseball pitch which softball players regularly hit and the defense fields and gets the runner out in less than 3 seconds! Here's to women's softball (that's from Tumblr).

I saw Aroldis Chapman throw for the Cubs last season. Our seats were on the 3rd base line and close. He throws hard. Really hard. I was like being at a car race; being there in person helps one really appreciate the speed; it's mind-blowing, electric. And everyone in Chicago saw him pitch – on TV at least; playoff tickets were too expensive for this guy – during the World Series run! Then he went right back to the Yankees. Effing Yankees. And now they have Judge and his 500 foot bombs.

"We're writing a book...

... every day of our lives, but we don't read that book. You have to look inside of yourself to see what you really want. What are you passionate about?"
     — David Goggins, SEAL, Ultramarathoner

"Your soul is screaming for you to find your true calling.... You can rebalance your priorities in life.... You can become the best parent possible at any age, even 86, but don’t wait until then…. You’ll always be able to make more money but you cannot make more time.... What do you want to be remembered for? What can you do for others to make the world a better place?.... You can step out of the shadows and into the light.... You were meant for more than just what you do for a living. You are an internal being meant to inspire and help the world."

     — Brian Cimins, More Was Never Enough

"For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels,
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows,
And did it my way."

     — Frank Sinatra, My Way

"Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall,
And did it my way."

    — more Frank Sinatra, My Way, is there a better song than that?!

#364

Regretfully, a few posts ago I mentioned drugs and sounded like Nancy Reagan which is a good thing because I adore Nancy Reagan. Her husband too. So I don't intend to skirt the topic (of drugs) with M 'n' m; whether I know too much or too little, I'm not sure. There must be an updated climate or sensibility; I'll assume things aren't precisely the same as they were 25 years ago at my high school (where I saw pot, mushrooms, and heard mention of acid, but never saw pills, powders, or needles). I really don't know if I'm naive or not at all. What will M 'n' m encounter directly or indirectly (I mean in cool conversation or suggestion)? Prescription meds, designer drugs, new drugs, old drugs? Whatever the case, I'll fumble through a talk or two with earnestness, practicality, and only mild hypocrisy. And there's a specific point I'll raise. Whether or not I come across as authoritative, current, relevant, or right in any other way, I intend to make the point that certain drugs, without question, involve violence. Health, safety, legality, addiction – these points feel more obvious to me – but I want the part about violence to sink in also. Consider this, for example, from an article in Men's Journal magazine this month:

"Hundreds and hundreds of rounds were fired during the gunfight between Ramon's people and Guzman's assassins. That night eight of Ramon's bodyguards were killed, as were 10 of Guzman's men and something like a dozen innocent civilians. It was a bloody massacre that should have made headlines all over the world. Or at the very least in the United States, the biggest consumer of the drugs we moved. The fact that it didn't just indicates that American society is deluded in thinking that personal drug use is a victimless crime. Every ounce of pot or eight ball of cocaine or bindle of heroine that changes hands on the streets or in an executive suite or at an Oscar afterparty has blood on it. A lot of it is innocent blood."

The Cubs...

... just crash-landed into the break, and with only one All-Star. Geez. Baseball is fickle, man. It's a tough, sensitive sport. A game of rhythm and momentum that must be nurtured, stoked, upheld somehow, or things go flat, the bounces go the other way, and suddenly you suck even though you're loaded with talent. Sports and life, always analogous. The Cubs still have a good shot at the playoffs – thankfully they're not in the NL West, for example – but I'd say last week was their worst of the season; so yeah, they're like not improving. The Dodgers and Astros look way more capable and hungry. But Theo and Joe won't disappoint us, and all the hundred year bullshit is over. Finally. Thank God.

"Anyone can have a bad century."
     — Jack Brickhouse

I mentioned poetry...

... a few posts ago and recently found myself halfway through Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Two visits to Ireland – and Irish people, pubs, culture, humor, and hospitality – convinced me nothing bad or boring comes from there. The book is good. Rich like a decadent dessert. I will take M 'n' m wherever they want after their college graduation. By then it might be outer space. If it's Ireland, I have an idea what to see and do. I hope they choose Ireland, Scotland, London, Paris, Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam, Prague, Rome, Venice, Florence, Geneva, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Saint Petersburg, Budapest, Krakow and whatever else we can cram into a week or two. Unless they choose Asia. Or Africa. Or South America or Australia or even Antarctica which is just a jump from Argentina. We'll do it.

From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:

"Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor."

"It is personalities, not principles, that move the age."

"The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize."

"It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man - that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above it's proper value."

Knee-high by the 4th of July

Megan planted four corn plants this spring. Only one is 'knee-high by the 4th of July' – chipmunks dug up the other seeds – but I explained to Meg that at .250, if she was a Cub, she'd be nearly tops on the team. The Cubs are mediocre so far, but they'll get hot and win the division. And birth in Iowa – M 'n' m are Illinois born but not me – has many privileges, one is familiarity with catchy corn phrases. Of course, we know the use of nitrogen fertilizers and earlier planting dates has invalidated this old saying, and it's about yields, not height; a short stalk can out-yield a tall one. So there. Megan and Michael are tall, but productivity is what matters. Was that too forced (the parenting analogy I mean)? I remembered this is about parenting and not farming. Meg and I have tomatoes, beans, peppers, and basil this year too. We moonlight as farmers.  

Happy 4th, especially to my friend Dave and his family.

#363

Been Franklin has eclipsed Bear Grylls as my favorite human. While driving to Iowa, I listened to a documentary about the guy I never see on money because I can't afford to carry hundreds. I asked M 'n' m to make a favorite person list (family excluded). Naturally, it got me listing too. I did it sort of chronologically, hence Santa, my first favorite. And then Rickey Henderson; I was heavily sports-minded as a kid and I wanted to be Rickey. 130 thefts in 1982 (I was seven). Are you kidding me?! Three times more than 100 stolen bases in a season. I have all his baseball cards. I digress. Here's my favorite men, family excluded. I can identify with men. Listing women... just feels like something not to do. Mother Teresa. Mary. Anyway, my list of dudes, pretty quickly done; I'm sure I've forgotten some:

1) Santa Claus
2) Rickey Henderson
3) Davy Crocket
4) Bill Hickok
5) Crazy Horse
6) Abraham Lincoln
7) The Holy Family (that's three folks actually, and possibly four – brother James?)
8) Michael Jordan
9) Dwight Long (I should probably tell him I'm using his name here, as I know him personally, an infectiously positive, all-around unrivaled role-model in my life)
10) Jimmy Carpenter (same as above, hope he doesn't mind, although this is a nice list, let's face it; Jimmy is an awesome competitor and solid dude; a highlight of my life was helping him win basketball games, although winning was nearly guaranteed already when playing alongside Jimmy)
11) Cecil Travis (an all-star MLB shortstop whose career was interrupted by service in WWII, specifically he was in the Battle of the Bulge. So was my grandpa)
12) Thich Nhat Hanh 
13) MLK
14) Muhammad Ali
15) Marcus Aurelius
16) Hugh Jackman
17) F. Scott Fitzgerald
18) Dave Grohl
19) Bear Grylls
20) Ben Franklin

Honorable Mention: Fred Hoiberg (Go Cyclones!), Jack London, Jack Black, Ulysses S. Grant, Steve Nash, Theodore Roosevelt, Eliot Ness, George Washington, Thomas Merton, Joel Osteen, Michael Chabon, John S. Mosby (thank you Bruce Van Sloun for the book)

You should make a list too.

I've had about 500...

... visitors to the blog over the last couple days. That's cool, thank you. Megan would be proud. Recall her comment: "Why do you do it Dad, if you don't have any followers?" I still don't have any 'followers' but lately I've have had more readers, Meg! Rest assured I'm not making any money off the awkward dating-site ads Google is placing here. I feel special having ads though.

God paints in the sky at night and it's beautiful...

... who doesn't love a sunset, before and after, there's purple and orange in it, soft blues and grays. Megan paints too. I hope she never ever ever ever stops. Do Jackson Pollocks if nothin' else, man.

The nice thing about a blog...

... with bits about parenting, is that material is pretty ubiquitous in everyday life. More from Bear Grylls:

"I think the best way to parent is by example."
     — Bear Grylls

He said this in an interview before explaining a pic of himself doing pushups on a frozen lake naked (to generate bodily warmth while his clothes were shed and drying). And then a chat about how he skinned a dead, rotten seal to make a wetsuit (a stinking, bloody wetsuit). Okay. That's how my words and actions line up too sometimes.

#362

Awesome stuff. There's a lot of awesome stuff goin' on in the world. There's a lot of awesome stuff that went on before us. Awesome stuff. Funny, I think I wrote a poem. A bad one, but I tell M 'n' m there are no bad poems, there are words, art, creative expression, catharsis. Use them, and use more of your hours on the good. There's a lot of pain and tragedy too, past and present, and we shouldn't be ostriches or disrespect that, but I remind myself, sometimes, what Chicago-guy Billy Corgan said:

"The world is a vampire."

     — The Smashing Pumpkins

So stay in the sun. Maybe keep close a symbol of inspiration and blessedness to you? (You know, the cross, holy water thing....)

The 24-hour news cycle is a tyrant. Scary, shocking, sensational. I try not to be its peasant.

The world can be tough and dangerous. But we have art. And it doesn't have to be pretty.

"And yet, paradoxically, in the very act of exposing the abiding instability of existence, art moors us to a sense of the eternal and becalms our momentary tumults against the raging ocean that has always washed, and will always wash, the shoreline of the human spirit."

     — Maria Popova