Blog

  • Where I work

    I work on the couch most days. The local library was the other place that I would work, but currently that branch is closed for repairs and remodeling, which leaves me on the couch for the foreseeable future. It would be nice to have a desk to work at. That last time I had a desk was two years ago before my wife got her current remote job. Since that time, we did away with the old wooden desk, and my wife has more of a rolling/standing desk she uses in the bedroom. Maybe I’ll have a desk again, one day.

    On the whole, I like sitting on the couch. It is comfy, though that can be a disadvantage when I am tired, and it is quite easy to slink over and take a nap. But being in the living room gives me access to the stereo and the TV which is one way I can listen to music while I work, it has turned out rather ideal

    The other nice aspect of the couch office is that I have a window I can look out of. Currently, I have the view of a construction site that is putting up a sixteen-story condo/hotel. The funny thing is that I never see more than five guys working there on any given day. At this rate, it might take them sixteen years to finish it. But even before the construction, it wasn’t the prettiest view out that window. We live in the back of the building, and for years we just had two empty parking lots and autobody shop to look at. Not exactly inspiring, but it was quite most days. Now, there is the sound of a power tools, between 7am and 4pm, Monday through Friday, but outside of that…

    Still rather ideal for writing.

    (Hey! It’s a new week, which means a new chance for you to give a like, or a share, or even leave a comment on this blog. Unless you are reading this from the archive, in that case; Who won the 2024 Election?)

    (It will take some time, but that joke WILL pay off.)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Tottenham Statement, It’s a Con, Weather, Honesty, and Connection

    (Riding on any wave, that is the luck you crave)

    Tottenham isn’t playing this weekend, so I have nothing to say about them this week. Oh, I will have something to say, but not at this time.

    What if I told you that no one knows anything? That knowledge, true knowledge, is unattainable. If all of that is true, then do you think that real estate seminar really has secrets to share with you? It’s a con.

    Sweater weather means I also need warmer socks.

    Friends don’t let friends become Alex Jones-types.

    Somedays, it’s hard to get the thoughts organized enough to share them. But what I do know is that Elastica was an underrated band.

    (Remember to like, share and comment. Not just on this blog, but in life, too.)

  • The Dance of the Air Conditioners

    When God? When Lord, will we be able to take our air conditioners out of our apartment?

    This is the prayer I say around this time of year. Fall is so tantalizingly close, but still we need our air conditioners. I just want these clunky, environment destroying, comfortability creating machines out of our home! They run up our electricity bill, make the apartment feel unnaturally cool, and block the use of widows.

    Like most people up here in the Northeast, we have a home that doesn’t contain central air conditioning. We have a window unit in the kid’s room, and a stand-alone unit that takes up an awkward position in the living room, like a house guest that won’t leave. Though our apartment is great in winter, as it retains heat very well, this place is an oven in the Summer. No matter how we try to vent and fan this place, the air in here remains warm, and never leaves. In fact, we have a dead zone at the dining table where it will continually stays two to five degrees warmer than the rest of the place.

    Usually around Memorial Day or the first week in June, we head out to storage and pick up our two a/c units. We play the game of, “Will Dad Throw Out His Back,” sometimes accompanied with the question, “Is That a Hernia?” The wife does help me as we do have to carry these units up two flights of stairs. It is a chore no one wants to do, but we know we have to do it to survive the Summer.

    In fact, the wife did her first Summer in the apartment with no a/c. This is before I showed up, so I didn’t experience it, but oh the stories that woman can tell of the heat. Never again will this apartment not have a/c in the Summer, she swore!

    Then around this time of year, mid to late September, after the weather has settled to an average daily high in the mid 70’s, we do the dance again, back to storage with the units. Going down the stairs with heavy objects is much easier and fun. It sort of is like the first activity of Fall for us; next comes apple picking and pumpkin carving.

    The lead up to removing the a/c’s this year has been rather excruciating. See, at the end of August, we took a vacation up to northern Maine, staying in a cabin on the side of a mountain. It was pretty there, as I am sure you can imagine, but what was the most thrilling for us old people was that we had the windows open, day and night, with the breeze coming in. You had to put a sweater on at night. That’s right! A sweater in August, which is a thrill for a guy who grew up in Texas, and the word August is synonymous with 100-degree heat. So, what I am looking forward to is opening up windows and putting on a sweater.

    As I sit here on my couch, with the a/c blowing, I am writing this post while waiting on a cool front to come through. Hopefully, by the end of today, we will have windows open. The sweater might still be a reach, but here’s to hoping.

    (Hey! I see you there. Look, I need a favor. I can’t pay off my bookies until this blog thing starts generating some cash for me. Okay, so what I need you to do is to like this post, or comment on it, or even share it with people you know. Anything to get that algorithm working in my favor. I can get you back on this. Promise.)

  • Parenting: Dealing with Disappointment

    I had mentioned back on Friday that my daughter didn’t get into the free After-School program at her school. We broke the news to her over the weekend to allow her time to process the development, and talk it out. On the whole, she said that she was okay with it. What she wanted was to spend more time with her friends at the playground and with me.

    That sounded sweet, but I had my suspicions.

    Sadly, I was correct on Monday. Drop off in morning at school was fine. I reminded her that I would be back when school let out, and that we could go to the playground if she wanted. Again, she said that was what she wanted to do. When I came back to pick her up, I could see in her eyes that it was beginning to dawn on her that virtually all of her friends, save two, got into the After-School program. We did go to the playground, and she played with her two good friends, but I knew, I mean I could feel it, that she was having the feelings of being left out and rejected. After about forty-five minutes of half-assed, her heart wasn’t into it, playing, she asked me if we could go home.

    At home, we all talked about what she was feeling, and how it hurts. We also talked about things we could do tomorrow to make after school more fun than today. When it was bedtime, she had bounced back, and was that silly goofy kid.

    When it was pick up time yesterday, she had that same gloomy face, and looking longingly at all her friends that are taking part in the After-School. When went to the playground again, but this time, her two friends weren’t there. Though there were a few kids from her class running around, she refused to play with them, because she only wanted to play with “her” friends.

    It was just breaking my heart to see her hurt in this way. I know that she originally didn’t want to do the After-School, and she really didn’t like it last year. I know it took a long time for me and the wife to convince her that we should apply for the program. I know all of this.

    And I don’t know how to fix this, and I also don’t know if I should. Disappointment is a part of life, and something that everyone has to learn to deal with. But I can’t shake the feeling that my job as her dad is to not let her suffer needlessly. Even if this is a small hiccup on the path of her life, right now to her, this is the biggest set back she’s faced. Asking her to put this in perspective is a futile act because she is too young to have a perspective. (And also, I hated when parents and teachers would tell me that what I was feeling wasn’t that big of a deal. It was a big deal to me, and that’s all that mattered.) In her life, and I know she has been very lucky so far, this is the most complicated emotional issue she has had; She wanted something, didn’t get it, and has to be reminded daily that she’s not included. She’s feeling disappointment, a little embarrassment, shame, loss, sadness, and the dreaded fear of missing out.

    I feel powerless to help her. I know we need to keep talking about her feelings, but my gut instinct is to take action – do something to better the situation. Other after school activities cost money, which we are in short supply of, so I think I’m going to have to be a little creative. Maybe we come up with a library day once a week, or visit museums? Maybe we go and volunteer at local arts organizations? Maybe we do art projects at home? Maybe I put her to work painting the apartment?

    I think the lesson I need to teach her, and reinforce in myself, is that getting disappointed is something that is inevitable and sometimes out of our control. How we deal with that disappointment is what we can control. Taking those feelings of disappointment and channeling them into something positive might be the best way to handle this situation.

    I hate seeing the kid upset, though. That one stings.

    (Say, I have a favor to ask of you. If you enjoyed this blog post, please share the love and give it a like, or a comment, or a share, or whatever combination works best for you. You’d be doing a body good.)

  • Trucker Movies: A Personal Journey

    Have you ever seen the movie Convoy? I have seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never watched it all the way through.

    That changed last night, and the first thing I learned was that the Convoy was directed by Sam Peckinpah. I should have put that together, especially after the climax on the bridge, where everyone has a gun and was shooting it. I found the movie entertaining, but it wasn’t good.

    Convoy was one of the many movies, tv shows and songs about truckers and trucking in America. I’m talking about White Line Fever, Smokey and the Bandit, Handle with Care, Breaker! Breaker!, High-Ballin’, B.J. and the Bear, and Any Which Way but Loose to name a few. As cultural trends go, the trucker/CB movement of the late 70’s is so fascinatingly unique. And I do hold that it was a movement, with the movies, tv shows, songs, and clothing. That’s a lot of trucker shit in its very brief life from 1975 to, I would say, about 1980. What I also find odd about the trucker/CB stuff is that it never had a resurgence. Sure, trucker hats were cool a couple of years ago, but Ashton Kutcher never made a trucker movie.

    But why did all this trucker stuff become so popular in the late 70’s?

    Most of these movies revolve around the idea of the free or independent hero who is harassed or chased by law enforcement, ether justified or not. These heroes aren’t free-spirited hippies; they are blue collar workers. They have a job to do, hauling goods across America, which is vital to the economy, but each trucker has their own rig, which makes them their own boss, which makes them free.

    Basically, all these movies are Easy Rider, just trucks instead of bikes. And not as many drugs.

    I saw most of these movies growing up in the late 80’s and early 90’s, thanks to basic cable. And when I think back on all of these movies, I guess they all behave like westerns. Most of them take place in the West or South, away from “cities” and “normal” people. Law enforcement is corrupt and unrestrained. Individualism is respected, expected, and the hero lives outside of society, except for the community of truckers. Almost like late 60’s anti-hero movies.

    Having said that, maybe these movies were of a specific time, and as such, cannot exist outside of that context. Maybe the late 70’s were a time when the idea of the rough individual American was going away, foretelling the coming of the corporate, conforming yuppie 80’s.

    I will add this; it would be nice if they did make more movies with monkeys as sidekicks.

    (Say! If you read something you like, don’t be a stranger. A like, comment or share would go a long way to save your soul.)