#375

I think storytelling is important. I guess I'm not the only one. We have Barnes & Noble, public libraries, movie theaters, a thousand TV channels, and much more. We have YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram. We have the Kindle app (but I still prefer books with paper pages).

Michael is over a month into high school. So far, so good. It's challenging, demanding, tiring but I haven't noticed any kind of crushing of the spirit. On the contrary; Michael seems upbeat. That was overly dramatic – the phrase 'crushing of the spirit' I mean – but peer pressure and serious mischief and bullying and bullshit like that can cause big problems. My firstborn is a full-on high-schooler now; it seems appropriate to be vigilant and observant. If I am only mildly naive and clueless, that would be swell. We'll see. Looking at my own experience isn't helpful; I was hazed more in junior high – by certain classmates – than in high school. And I was hazed again in college, but predictably so, by fraternity brothers. In all cases, thankfully, it was never anything serious; I would even call it invigorating and healthy (in my personal journey) and useful in toughening me up. In junior high there was periodic antagonism between factions we might've labeled 'preppies' and 'skaters.' I've joked here about wearing turtlenecks under sweaters and rugby shirts and spraying Polo cologne like I was putting out a forest fire. That should make it clear which army I was in. But the card-carrying, standard-bearing dudes on the other side tried just as hard as we did, to project an image, to be cool and expressive; they paid attention to detail also, rolling jeans and sculpting hair, and looking back I'd say they 'won' if victory can be measured by courageousness and originality. All of this reminds me of something I read in Esquire magazine from Lyle Lovett: "The idea that we humans are good-natured, politically correct, nonjudgmental beings is pure fantasy. We are, at the very least, judgmental. My lessons in how to dress came from classmates in parochial school. The time-honored, behavior-modifying method of ridiculing and instilling a sense of shame were not spared at Trinity Lutheran School in Klein, Texas. "A sweater?" a boy said in a loud voice in front of the whole class as I walked into my classroom on an early October day and heard everyone laughing. In my defense, my desk was by an always-open window, and it was getting cooler, and it was a new sweater I was eager to wear – an off-white cable-knit V-neck. I loved that sweater. I didn't wear it again until it was freezing, three months later. In my early 20s, Searcy Bond, who owned a hamburger joint I used to play at on Sunday nights, once asked me if I'd lost a bet. I asked him what he meant and he pointed at my shirt and suggested I'd been forced to wear it as payment for a wager gone wrong. Why would anyone wear a shirt like that if they didn't have to was his implication. But that's how you learn. Ridicule and shame don't get much of a chance in these sensitive times, which makes learning about how to dress that much more difficult. Fashion is communication, plain and simple. I don't mean to sound as though I'm telling you something you don't already know, because any self-respecting man with even a little common sense knows exactly what he's saying and to whom he's saying it as he gets dressed in the morning. We all wear uniforms of sorts that allow us to be accepted. There's no shame in that. That we have the gumption to clean up and, as we stare into our closet, care about how we'll look shows we're trying to put our best foot forward."

For the record, Michael dresses very casually (as in sweats and T-shirts mostly); I'm not sure what foot he's putting forward, or what look he's going for, or from which group he's seeking acceptance. I wouldn't consider him a sartorial standout. He's focused on other things. I know he has gumption. I know he cares about how he looks. Sometimes. But none of that matters to me as much as my sense that he's upbeat; it's hard work but my impression is he likes high school. So far.