The wife and I had a good friend come in from out of town yesterday, and we all went to lunch. I had this thought, more like an understanding, which was that this wouldn’t just be lunch – this would be a hang out. And I was correct. We grabbed lunch, and then headed back to our place, and hung out, catching up, for several hours. The wife made queso, and I made drinks. My wife had the foresight to get all of her work finished for the day before our friend came over; I held out hope that somehow I would find the time to get my stuff done after he left. A couple of drinks told me that I wouldn’t work yesterday. But… I’m not really upset by that. It had been years since we had seen our friend, and spending time with people you care about is never wasted time
There is a Trader Joe’s in Harlem! It opened yesterday! Holy Shit! Everyone is going to the Trader Joe’s in Harlem! And it’s about time! I am a huge fan of quality items sold at affordable prices…
The kid is away at camp, and yesterday, I got a letter in the mail from her. The letter was short, very cute, sweet, and made me almost bust out in tears and cry my little dad heart out. Even thinking about the letter makes me choked up. Fatherhood is an amazing adventure, showing me that I have more love and compassion than I thought I contained.
My kid loves to swim, and wants to swim all the time as soon as it starts getting hot out. That can be a rather tough request to fulfill, as we do live in New York City. There are beaches, and a Jersey Coast. There also happens to be lakes upstate, and New England does have many swimming holes. But those are all exercises for vacations. Speaking of vacations, we are at the age where if hotel doesn’t have pool, we have killed our child’s will to live.
Now, we have one great advantage in our neighborhood, which is that we are only a few blocks from the community pool. (There are two City services that make New York an amazing place to live; the first is the libraries, and the second is the City Park Service. They both don’t receive enough credit, nor enough funds.) We have an awesome pool that is run well, and is filled with kids. The window that these pools are open is short, normally 4th of July to Labor Day, and even by Labor Day, it can start getting cool out.
This year the pools opened a week early, and we would have been there if the kid didn’t get a nasty Summer cold last week. BUT, today we were all healthy and headed out, to jump and splash around. And being that this is our fifth year of doing this, I’ve started looking forward to going. It’s part of our Summer, either early mornings, or late afternoons at the pool; The kid does make swimming friends, who we will only see at the pool, and never anywhere else in the neighborhood. I get some quality reading done while lounging in the plastic Adirondack chairs, while keeping on eye on the kids screaming and splashing.
We are running the air conditioner in the apartment now, which means it’s officially Summer for us. Sure it would be nice to jump into a pool, do some grilling, and drink a beer and watch the Cubs play. I took my shorts out of storage, and also took my ghost white legs out as well. Looking forward to awkward farmer-esk tan lines, and getting a sunburn on the top if my head. It’s not all bad. Summer does mean travel, and fun, and camp, and mini golf, and disc golf, and road trips, and seeing family and friends. I am not a fan of the heat, but I am looking froward to this Summer
It’s Career Day at my kids school, which means that the students can come to class dressed up as their future careers. My daughter decided that her future career will be as an artist. I asked, what does an artist wear? Her answer; Whatever I want.
They’re destroying New York City. Yes, little old ladies. They have no respect for anyone, are rude, obnoxious, and give their opinions when no one is asking for it. They’ll hit you with their canes and granny carts, and dare you to do something. But we all know that no one will do anything to a little old lady. Those old ladies are untouchable in this town, and they all know it, and use it against the rest of us. We are being held hostage in our own home. I’m not kidding. In every borough, the old ladies are the worst.
If you have read any of my reviews, then you know that I am a sucker for a story about death, especially if it’s a story dealing with the death of a parent. “Consolation” by Andre Alexis is such a story, as it deals with the death of both the narrator’s parents, but it is also about how parents’ shame can affect their children, can affect a marriage, and can affect the community they live in.
The piece begins with the narrator telling how he got in an argument with his elderly mother over driving directions, and the narrator was so hurt but his mother’s anger, that he didn’t speak to her for two years. Only when they reconciled, did the narrator learn that his mother had dementia, and most likely the fight was a precursor of her disease. This leads the narrator to recount the death of his father, which happened a decade earlier, and though we feel that the son loves his father, we also learn that the father was a serial philanderer, thrice divorced, and despised by the narrator’s mother for the infidelity. Then the narrator tells us the story of his father, who was born in poverty in Trinidad, worked his way up and out by becoming a doctor, and then married the woman who would become the narrator’s mother. Together, they started a family, and moved to Canada, to a small all white town, where the father dealt with the indignity of the town’s prejudice, to become a respected member of the community. It is also the place where the father’s infidelities began to be noticed, and affect the family.
This is a well thought out, and written, short story. The characters are compelling. The family dynamic is honest, complicated, and uncomfortable. It’s paced well, has a very unique climax, and I just didn’t like this story when everything is telling me that I should. I have been thinking about, and thinking about it, and I should like this, but something just feels off to me. And today, it came to me; it’s passion. Which is even more striking as there is a paragraph in this story that is about passion – between the father and another woman, and the son realizing that this moment of discovering this passion lead him to his career as a lawyer. That this is a story about passions, between lovers, between family members, how they can spark trust and betrayals. Yet, I found the narration less than passionate, which I can only say was done on purpose. This passionless narration juxtaposed with these lives driven by different forms of passion which elicit reactions of shame, desire, and anger. I go back to the start of the story and the narrator describing the argument he had with his mother. The way it is described is almost clinical, factual, without any hint of what the narrator was feeling. It is an event that is only described and not felt. I get the decision to write this story in this way, to make the point that is needed for it to have its conclusion. This artistic choice left me feeling divorced from the emotions of these characters, which explains why I couldn’t connect with the story.
I will fully admit that I am the odd man out here. I can totally understand why people will love this story, and be dumbfounded by my inability to relate to this piece. Yes, it’s me, and it is not Andre Alexis. You should read this story, enjoy it greatly, and then shake your head at me for not getting this story.
(The past wasn’t that good, and the future isn’t that bad…)
Though I hate to admit this, I think it is time to say out loud that Tottenham will not make it to the Champions League next season. Ange Postecoglou has done a very good job with turning the team around and stopping the slide to a middle of the table team. And this was going to be a hard season, as it was the first without Harry Kane. But with 7 points behind Aston Villa, and matches against Liverpool and Man City yet to come, the odds are severely stacked against the team. No Champions League for next season, but there will be a birth in the Europa League. But hey, this was a better year, and next year will have extra competition, and more chances for trophies.
Not on purpose, but I roundabout took the month of April off when it came to submitting stories. But I am coming back for the month of May. I’ve sent out four submissions thus far, and in the back of my head, I have a good feeling that I accidently messed up on somebody’s submission guidelines. Like, I didn’t put the page number in the correct corner. One time, I sent out a story and misspelled the editor’s name in the cover letter. Yeah, there’s no coming back from that.
And it is true, ice cream does make everything better. Are you having an awful day? Have some ice cream. It won’t solve any problems, but it does make you feel better. And out of all the wonderful joys and experiences I have had with becoming a father, getting ice cream with my daughter is damn near one of the best.
