Month: April 2022

  • ODDS and ENDS: World Travel, This Made Me Laugh, Easter, and You Know

    (I write, you read, we’re all happy)

    I have not left the confines of the United States, and that is a situation I would like to correct. I would like to leave the North American continent, and see the world. And when I say that, I really mean there is only one place that I have to go and see before I die, and that is the zebra crossing in front of Abbey Road. I want to walk it, and have my picture taken while crossing it, and I even what to be in other people’s pictures when they cross it. That’s it. I just want to be in the same place where my favorite and best band once walked. Everything else in the world, I can take or leave. Sorry Taj Mahal, and the Pyramids.

    Sesame Street is a National Treasure!

    https://ew.com/tv/brett-goldstein-sesame-street-first-look-cookie-monster-tamir/

    As a secular family, Easter is hard to explain to a seven-year old. She loves the Easter Bunny, and the coming of Spring, but trying to make her understand that people get very happy about the son of God getting killed, then coming back from the dead, and NOT being a zombie, is a little hard for her to wrap her head around. But we try.

    Tottenham is in fourth place. That is all.

  • Summer Vacation

    I have started planning for Summer. Vacations, and interactions, and all that other stuff.

    When I was a kid, Summer just meant sleeping in and watching tv all day. I grew up in Texas, and the Summers last from May to October. I’m not kidding when I say that. It can be very normal for the average high in October to be in the 80’s. My memory is that when Halloween rolled around, that was about the point when it started to feel Fall-like, which means that it got up to the 70’s in the day.

    With it being so hot, we stayed inside often, but that’s not to say that we didn’t go outside and sweat our asses off. The kid who had the pool in the neighborhood became everyone’s best friend June through August. But, being inside, I remember hearing the hum of the central air clicking on, and that low rumbling sound, like white noise, creating an audio-scape that would lull me off into a nap, as there was nothing better to do.

    The other thing I remember about Summers growing up, was that the season created odd friendships in the neighborhood. My close friends always had some place to be; a vacation, or visiting family out of state, or for the kids of divorce, spending the whole summer with their other parent. Those of us left in the subdivision became friends out of necessity. I remember hanging out the jock kids, or bullies, or even girls, the people who I would normally not mix with became rapt conspirators in Summer. But inevitably, when the school year started up again, we’d all go back to our groups, and resume the cliques we existed in.

    With my kid, and planning trips and whatnot, I wonder how she will come to view the Summer of her youth? Here in NYC, it is rather short, of only two months, making a total of ten weeks. If what I have planned happens, we will be out of the City for four weeks, leaving six weeks, which I feel the need to fill with some sort of activity. It’s like, I cannot let the kid be bored. Though when I think back on it, boredom was what Summer vacation from school was.

  • Short Story Review: “Just a Little Fever” by Sheila Heti

    (The short story “Just a Little Fever” by Sheila Heti appeared in the April 18th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    How’s that line go? “Youth is wasted on the young.” I’m sure when George Bernard Shaw said it in his Irish accent, it sound sounded profound, and very witty. I know it was meant as an insult to young people, and just about every time I have heard it said, especially toward me, it has been used as a shorthand to say that I am acting irrationally and stupid. But as I have gotten older, I find the line has more regret and melancholy in it, not toward the young, but for the older person saying it.

    “Just a Little Fever” by Sheila Heti is a sweet, and charming story that grabbed me from the beginning. We meet Angela, who is youthful, and shampooing cherries into her hair, not because it was suggested to her by a friend or an article, but just because she thought of it, and wanted to try it. With her hair smelling of cherries, so goes to work as a bank teller and meets the well-dressed but older gentleman Thomas, who comes up to her window. They have a short but honest conversation, and Angela finds herself still thinking about Thomas. Angela decides to look up Thomas’ phone number from his account, and asks him out to dinner. After a little first date awkwardness, they continue to see each other, and enter into a relationship. Clearly, more happens, but I don’t want to spoil it.

    Like I said, I found myself enjoying the story from the start, but what really endeared me to it was how Heti kept layering, or maybe reveling is the better word, the deep truths and inner workings to Angela’s character. It resonated with me how Angela viewed being around people her own age, and how Thomas made her feel calm, and in the moment. How Angela had to question and test her feelings with Thomas, and how she began to see that people in her life might not be the healthiest people for her. I don’t think Heti ever overtly said that Angela was happy with Thomas, but there was that feeling coming out of the text, indescribable but apparent. When the final section started, leading to the climax and resolution, I dreaded reading it, because, not that I knew what was coming, but because what was coming was authentic to who Angela was.

    Yes, the ending frustrated me, but in the very best possible way. I found myself caring, very strongly, for these two characters. And though my experience was not exactly the same as Angela and Thomas, but I had a moment with someone once, where I was very happy to be in the middle with them. But, I too was young, and wasted my youth.

  • The Fear of Missing Out Monster

    The kid this morning told me that she wants out of the after-school program that she is in. I asked why, and she told me she doesn’t have any friends. Then she told me to not get a job so we could spend more time together, and that she play with her friends in the park. I think I know what the issue is, which comes down to that there are two classes in after-school program, and her friends from school are in the other class, and she feels like she is missing out.

    Parent me listened to her, and didn’t pass any judgement. I did remind her that she just needed to get through this week, and then she would be on Spring Break. After that, she only had eight weeks left, and then it was Summer vacation. After that, we could talk about what to do next.

    Regular me knows just what she is going through, as I can remember what it was like to be seven years old, and just wanting to be with your friends. The total and all-consuming angst of not being around them, and assuming that they have forgotten about you, and are no longer having fun. For a split second I almost told her it’s not that big of a deal, but I stopped that. It is a big deal to her. This is the first time she is experiencing something like this, and I don’t want to make her feel ashamed for feeling this way.

    I do know that my job is to help her cope and overcome these feelings, in a healthy and constructive way.

    Sadly, I don’t know if I ever learned that skill set myself. I still feel like I am missing out. That all my friends are having fun without me.

    So, I have work to do for the both of us.

  • Shared Aches and Pains (Uneditied)

    We all had a bad night of sleep. Me, the wife, and the kid. We all woke up late, and each had a different ache and pain. The kids feet hurt, the wife’s hip hurt, and I had knee and hip pain. I mean, we are all better now that we are up and moving, but this morning, man, we were all moving slow.

    Can you have communal aches and pains?

    I guess that is possible, but still seems odd.

    I know why I feel the way I do, because I stayed up too late and fell asleep on the couch, which isn’t the best place to sleep. Normally the sofa causes back pain, but every day is a new discovery. For this reason, I am skipping going to the gym.

    I have been going to the gym for nine weeks now, and the best I can tell, I have lost 6 lbs. other than that, I don’t feel better. I don’t feel that I am thinking clearer, or have a more positive attitude. What I have is a new item on my schedule, that I do four times a week. I know that they say you need to do something 90 days for it to become a habit, and I guess I am closing in on it, but I don’t seem to be getting the rewards that are claimed.

    This doesn’t mean I’m quitting. No, I need to work out to stay healthy, even if that means I’m not losing weight, or thinking clearer, or having positive attitude. I need my heart to work properly for the next thirty or so years. That’s what keeps me going. I was just hoping to lose my middle-aged man gut.

    I’ll be back tomorrow.