The West Wing - Big Block of Retweets Day

I don't know when this all started, but one day I noticed that somebody I follow on Twitter had retweeted President Jed Bartlet. Y'know, the president from the West Wing.

Then I saw that President Bartlet was trading remarks with Leo McGarry's Ghost.

As I found one, I found another. Everybody from the West Wing is on Twitter, y'all. I mean, seriously, everybody. Here's the list of everyone I've found so far.

President Bartlet
President Santos
Toby Ziegler
Josh Lyman
Donna Moss
CJ Cregg
Leo McGarry
GlenAllen Walken
Lord John Marbury
Will Bailey
Sam Seaborn

There are more. There must be dozens of West Wing accounts. Who is maintaining these things? Whoever's posting for each character has them down pat - Bartlet is scholarly and irritable, Josh playful and pugnacious, Lord Marbury is ... well, Lord Marbury. It's amazing fun to see them all interacting with each other, having conversations just like the good old days. One of my favorite discoveries of 2010.

P.S. I just noticed, when tagging this post, that I have not ever tagged a post with "Twitter" before. How strange is that!

Not Failing

A month or so ago, I posted in my misery about the tough time my son was having in kindergarten. Since I posted that, I meant to post an update and let you know how he's been doing.

First, we started visiting a therapist with Oliver. The therapist is someone who's experienced working with kids, and who understands childhood anxiety really well. She's been wonderful with O, and he's grown to trust her very quickly. She's pretty certain that he's being dogged by anxiety, and has really worked on teaching strategies for dealing with it himself.

So we had a meeting. Both of us were there. Both of his teachers. (He is in two different classrooms during the day, so he has two different teachers who share responsibility.) The special ed teacher, the nurse, the PE teacher, the school psychologist, the principal, and a bunch of people I can't even remember. It was stunning to see so many people focused on our little guy.

We also had our therapist with us. And she was a godsend, people. Every time one of the people would start suggesting something that sounded off-base - hinting at autism or ADD or other scary stuff - our therapist pulled the conversation back to his anxiety.

In a lot of ways, it was reassuring for us to see that the teachers really didn't know Oliver. We told them that for years, we'd go to playdates and the other parents would tell us what a nice, sweet little boy Oliver was. He wasn't a hitter. He didn't spit at other kids. He didn't start fights. This was about him being overwhelmed in a new environment.

So the teachers have been working, since that day, to make the environment more welcoming for him, and to find ways to reward him for positive behavior. He has a little chart every day that the teachers fill out, so we know how he did during the day. Each part of the day has its own section, so we can see if he has more difficulty in the morning or in the afternoon.

The teachers have moved him closer during class, too. And this little change has made a world of difference. O was getting mischievous when he didn't know what was going on during class and when nobody seemed to be paying attention to him. So that little change of proximity has eliminated most of that issue.

He's blossoming in school now. He's always been smart - we saw his report card, and he's showing great progress in reading and in math. He can count and do simple math in Spanish and in English. He is reading now - short words, short sentences. But he's so proud to be reading, and he loves to show us how well he's doing. He's happier in school, and I know the teachers are happier now to see Oliver doing well. This is what we were hoping to see, and thank goodness everybody's been working together to get him to this point.

Clifford's Really Awful Soundtrack

Have you seen Clifford's Really Big Movie?

(I will remind you that I have Netflix and a five-year-old, so our house has been victimized by that movie multiple times.)

The movie itself isn't too bad, but the music is absolutely atrocious. I think they commissioned two songs for the movie. The music is mindless, the lyrics are insipid, and you hear them during the entire movie because they play them OVER and OVER and OVER AGAIN all through the movie. They have slow sad versions, they have fast happy versions, they have instrumental versions. It's a lot like what they did with Simon and Garfunkel's music for the Graduate, except in this case the results are horrible.

Runner

My wife has a sister who used to run marathons. Years ago, I asked Mrs. B if she ever ran, and she looked at me as if the question was "so, have you ever done any Satanic rituals?"

"No," she said with disdain. No, I'm not one of those people. One of those runner people.

My wife is now one of those runner people. Three days a week, she straps on her fancy runner shoes and goes running five or six miles along Alki Beach. She went for a run this morning, when it was 28 degrees outside. She said she ran an extra mile, just because it was so clear and beautiful outside.

Yep, she's definitely one of those people.

Part of her motivation is restlessness. Specifically, the elliptical machine we have in our office drives her crazy. The idea of running for 30 minutes indoors, staring at the wall, is unbearable to her. So much so that, sometime around April, she announced she was going to start running outdoors.

And she's done it, bless her heart. She started out slow - there was a training program she picked up for non-runners that she followed. So at the beginning, it was like 2 minutes of running, 8 minutes of walking. She's now doing 11 minutes of running with a one-minute walking break. Some days, she just runs the whole distance.

She's run a few 5Ks. She recently ran the Jingle Bell run in Seattle, when it was pouring rain and the wind was howling. She crossed the finish line soaked from head to toe, but jubilant. We were waiting at the finish line for her. (I wish I could say we stood outside the whole time, but we spent most of the time in a coffee shop, watching people's umbrellas blow inside out.)

She's going to be running a half-marathon in June. I'm so proud of her for keeping it up, three days a week, week after week after week. She didn't start running until this year, in her forties. We were in Oregon recently, visiting in-laws, and she asked me to drive her to a nearby town so she could do her Sunday run. It's what she does now. She has her running playlists, her little runner's cap, her armband for her iPod, a group of other women who run with her. My wife is a runner now.

10 New Year's Resolutions I Will Not Be Making

1. Give up caffeine.
2. Begin using "sock it to me!" as my new catchphrase.
3. Give Glenn Beck the benefit of the doubt.
4. Master the Moog synthesizer.
5. Find out what this Brazilian wax thing is all about.
6. Get that eyebrow piercing I've always wanted.
7. Launch a rave club in my basement.
8. Find out if I really need to shower more than once a week.
9. Launch a Tumblr blog, because Blogger is so totally 2005.
10. Shave all the hair off my body and begin dressing in black suits and hats.

Sunrise in Seattle

It's freaking cold outside.

Hard to complain when it looks like this, though.

One of the most breathtaking sunrises I've seen in Seattle. I used to think that the best sunrises and sunsets happened in Colorado, where I lived for several years. But Seattle's had some beautiful ones, this year especially.

I should add that it's also hard to complain when I'm inside a warm toasty house. Mrs. B is out running in the 28-degree weather. More on that later.

Brace Yourselves

I don't know if I can do this, but I've been given a challenge.

The charming and witty Adria Richards is holding a contest for bloggers. The challenge: write 25 blog posts in 24 hours.

There are prizes and stuff, but really, the contest is about getting busy. Too often, I-and most bloggers I know-have lots of ideas floating in our heads that we never write down. With Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, chatroulette, etc., we've lost that instinct to take our ideas immediately from inspiration to blog post. I want that spark back. Thanks, Adria, for a clever way to reactivate the blog.

If I get stuck, I see Adria is keeping a running list of her own blog post ideas. I might steal some of those. We'll see how quickly the well runs dry. (Although I don't do the work she does, and I'm not nearly the social media butterfly she is, so maybe that idea won't help.)

It's already 7:19, so I've missed a few hours. (Darn sleep.) One down, 24 to do. Yikes.

Jesus Has a Birthday, or, Three Magi of Very Little Brain

Jesus sighed.

"Pathetic," he sighed. "That's what it is. Pathetic."

He rolled over to the other side of the manger.

"Just as I suspected," he muttered to himself. "Straw. Just the same as the other side." He sneezed from the hay dust, and glumly rolled back to the first side. "But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is."

There was a shimmering noise outside the stable, and the angel Gabriel peeked in.

"Good morning, O Lord," said Gabriel.

"Good morning, Gabriel," said Jesus. "If it is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, Gabriel, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."

"Can't all what?" said Gabriel, rubbing his nose.

"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Hallelujah and all that."

"Oh," said Gabriel. He thought for a long time and then began singing softly to himself.

"Angels we have heard on high,

Sweetly singing o'er the plains.

And the mountains in reply,

echoing their sweet refrains."

"That's right," said Jesus. "Sing. Rum-pa-pum-pum. Here we go gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself."

"I am," beamed Gabriel.

"Some can," said Jesus.

"Why, what's the matter, My Lord?"

"Is anything the matter?"

"You seem so sad, O lord."

"Sad? Why in heaven should I be sad? It's my birthday, Gabriel. The happiest day of the year."

"Your birthday?" said Gabriel in great surprise.

Jesus rolled his eyes, trying to resist explaining that he wasn't anywhere the night before, and how he was here, and so that meant he was born, and so this was his birth day. Gabriel sometimes could be so ... so ... well, he could be sometimes.

"Yes, it's my birthday, Gabriel. Can't you see? Look at this festive decor. Look at all the presents waiting for me." He waved a tiny hand from side to side. "Look at the birthday cake. Candles and pink sugar."

Gabriel looked - first to the left and then to the right.

"Presents, O Lord? Cake?"

"Can't you see them?"

"No," said Gabriel.

"Neither can I," said Jesus. Gabriel stared at him blankly.

"Joke," he explained. "Ha ha."

Gabriel scratched his head.

"Well, a great happy birthday to you, O Lord and Savior. Many happy returns of the day!"

"And many happy returns to you, Gabriel."

"Oh. But it isn't my birthday."

"No, it's mine."

"Yes. And many happy ..." Gabriel paused, unsure where to go next, and decided to step out of the stable before he became more confused. Jesus was alone again in the manger.

"Pathetic," he said again.

~ ~ ~

Melchior ran towards Jerusalem, excited. In his hands he clutched a vessel containing a large amount of myrrh.

"Oh, won't he be so happy?" Melchior thought excitedly. He had never met the Lord before - Jesus had only just been born - but he would love myrrh. Myrrh was such a soothing balm, and had so many uses. What would he wish to do with so much myrrh? He thought. Maybe he would burn it for the wonderful fragrance. Maybe it would be used as a balm to soothe His Holy skin. He wondered if he, Melchior, would be allowed to rub it onto His skin. And he thought about this, and about myrrh, and how sweet it smelled, and of a time when his own mother had rubbed his back and arms with myrrh. And running along, and thinking how pleased Jesus would be, he didn't look where he was going ... and suddenly he put his foot in a hole and fell down flat on his face.

SPLAT!!!!???***

Melchior lay there, wondering what had happened. At first he thought a great wind had blown him off his feet, and then he wondered what part of the world he had ended up in. He would have to find the star again to get his bearings again. But no, wait, here was the star, in the Eastern sky just as it was before. Unless he had been blown clear to the moon and was looking down onto the star from the moon. He wondered how he would ever get down from the moon and see the Lord again.

And then he stood up and saw that he was still in the same land where he started.

"Well, that's funny," he thought. "I wonder what happened? And where's all my myrrh? And why is the vessel filled up with sand now?"

He raised it to his nose to smell it. It smelled of myrrh. Myrrh-scented sand.

"Oh dear," said Melchior. "Oh dear, oh dearie dearie dear! Well, it's too late now. I can't go back, and I haven't any more myrrh, and perhaps Jesus doesn't like myrrh so very much."

He walked on, rather sadly now, and down he came to the stable where Jesus was, and he called out to him.

"Good morning, O Lord," said Melchior.

"Good morning, Melchior," said Jesus. "If it is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he. "Not that it matters," he said.

"Many happy returns of the day," said Melchior.

Jesus raised his head and stared at Melchior.

"Just say that again," he said.

"Many happy returns of the day."

"Meaning me?"

"Of course, O Lord."

"My birthday?"

"Yes," said Melchior.

"Me having a real birthday?"

"Yes, my Lord, and I've brought you a present."

Jesus rolled to the other side. "I must hear that in the other ear," he said. "Now then."

"A present," said Melchior very loudly.

"Meaning me again?"

"Yes."

"My birthday still?"

"Yes, and I brought you myrrh."

"Myrrh, you say?" said Jesus. "You did say myrrh? That lovely stuff that smells so nice, and that you rub all over and it makes you feel nice. Gaiety, tra la la, here we are and there we are?"

"Yes, my Lord. But I'm afraid- I'm very sorry, my Lord - but when I was running along to bring it to you, I fell down."

"Dear, dear, how unlucky! You ran too fast, I suspect. You didn't hurt yourself, dear Melchior?"

"No, but I - I - oh, my Lord Jesus, I spoiled the myrrh!"

There was a very long silence.

"My myrrh?" said Jesus at last.

Melchior nodded. He handed Jesus the vessel, which was filled with sand.

"Here it is. With - many happy returns of the day."

"Is this it?" said Jesus, a little surprised.

Melchior nodded.

"Thank you, Melchior," said Jesus. "Well, well." He sniffed a bit at the sand. "My favorite," he said to himself sadly. "Well, well."

Caspar and Balthasar stood now at the door of the stable, and Caspar called out, "Many happy returns of the day!"

"Thank you, I'm having them," said Jesus.

Balthasar called out, "Many happy returns of the day!"

Jesus didn't say thank you this time, so Balthasar started again. "Many happy returns..." Then he remembered he had already said that, and stopped himself.

"I've brought you a little present," they both said at once.

"I've had it," said Jesus, looking at his vessel of myrrh-scented sand.

Balthasar handed Jesus a lovely gold urn. "It's a Useful Golden Pot," said Balthasar. "Here it is. And it's got 'A Very Happy Birthday to the Child King' written on it. That's what all that carving is. And it's for putting things in. There!"

When Jesus saw the pot, he became quite excited.

"Why!" he said. "I believe my myrrh will just fit into that pot."

"Myrrh?" said Balthasar, confused. "Oh, no, myrrh is too sticky and gummy, and it needs a special type of pot. What you do with myrrh is, you take the myrrh-"

"Not mine," said Jesus proudly. "Look, Melchior!"

And as Melchior looked sorrowfully round, Melchior picked up the sandy myrrh and poured it in a great long stream into the golden urn.

"So it does!" said Balthasar. "It goes in!"

"So it does!" said Melchior. "And it comes out!"

Caspar, who was standing at the door with handfuls of frankincense in his hands, said nothing.

"Doesn't it?" said Jesus. "It goes in and out like anything."

"I'm very glad," said Balthasar," that I thought of giving you a Useful Pot to put things in."

"I'm very glad," said Melchior happily, "that I thought of giving you Something to put in a Useful Pot."

Caspar, having nothing to say, placed his frankincense at the foot of Jesus' manager and continued looking like someone who cannot think of anything to say.

Jesus didn't say anything at all. He was pouring the sand into the golden urn, and back into its vessel, and back again, as happy as could be...

Three Questions in My Head

A few days ago, my son and I were sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. He turned to me.

"Daddy, I have three questions in my head right now."

"All right," I said, bracing myself. Questions about monsters? Volcanos? The sun? God?

"How many hours are in a day; how many minutes are in a day; and how many seconds are in a day?"

Math. He had math questions in his head.

This is a boy who is made of me. I loved numbers when I was a kid. Loved clean multiplication, loved the spiraling Fibonacci numbers, loved adding huge numbers in my head, loved doing squares and cubes. 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36. 1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216. 13² is 169. No mystery, no guesswork. It is what it is.

I still use math to go to sleep. I count squares, sometimes. Usually, my mind starts getting fuzzy around 17² (289), and I fall asleep before 20² (400).

I pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen and showed him how I calculated the numbers. The answers, before your own child asks you, are 24 hours, 1440 minutes, and 86,400 seconds in a day.

Failing?

I've never felt more lost as a parent.

When my son started school, I expected that certain behaviors might become an issue. He's a very shy kid. He withdraws when he doesn't understand something. I expected that, if anything, he'd be the kid who stood on the wall, waiting for someone to invite him to play with them.

This is not what has happened. He's been hitting. He's gone to the principal's office a few times. We've had meetings with his teachers.

I don't know what's happening. I think there are several phases in parenthood where a dad just goes, I don't know what's happening with this kid. Right now is one of those phases.

I think a lot of it is anxiety, and it's anxiety that manifests by him acting out against other kids. Which is a crappy way to act out, I admit, but it's coming from anxiety, not him being a maniac serial killer.

He's still our sweet little boy. He still skips down the sidewalk, he still sings to himself in his bedroom, he still has little conversations with his stuffed animals when we're not looking.

But at school, he's a wilder, more out of control little boy. Is it us? Is it something happening at school? Is it the sudden shift, from a daycare he attended for years to a new school with all new friends? Are we failing as parents, or is his school failing him? Or is it some third option? Not sure.

But it's bewildering, and it's frustrating as hell. I hate the feeling that each day, something's going to happen. I pray each morning - yes, I say a prayer to the Lord above - that he has a good day. A good day right now means he keeps his hands to himself, he doesn't hit other kids, doesn't kick them, doesn't trip them in the hallway. I wanted to be hearing about the books he was reading, the kids he was befriending, the awesome things he was learning. Instead, the reports I'm getting are about which kid hit him first and how he responded. I hate this. I know someday we will move past this period, and we will look back at this as ancient history. I want that moment to be today. I want this to be over.

Pumpkin Season

Age 2.

Age 4.

Age 5.

Happy Halloween, dear readers.

Shootings and Questions

A man was shot and killed last night in downtown Seattle. It happened on 2nd and Pike, a block away from the Pike Place Market.

Why?

Was it a drug deal gone bad? We think of episodes of the Wire. Was alcohol involved? Was it a gang thing?

Why did this happen in our peaceful city?

Was it some kind of fight? Did they know each other? Was it an argument over a girl, a car, a football game?

How can this be not about me, but about the victim and the shooter? We don't want to believe we live in a city where random shootings just happen. Random violence is terrifying. The universe must have a plan. Things must happen for a reason.

Why did he get shot? Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? 2nd and Pike isn't the most savory part of town. There are lots of shady characters hanging around there. Maybe he deserved it.

Maybe it was his fault.

Maybe this has nothing to do with me, with our city, with our society. Maybe this was all about him.

I know I'm not the only one who has these thoughts flooding into his head. It's ugly, but that's the way we think, in a civil society. We want to have a reason for violence that makes it about The Other, about something else. Because the alternative - that violence happens suddenly, inexplicably, unpredictably - is too terrifying to bear.

The Job that I Have

I've been working. I have a job, ladies and gentlemen.

I've been working for ... um ... weeks, actually. Sorry I haven't mentioned it.

I haven't posted it because I haven't been able to figure out how to talk about it here. I'm working in communications for a very large and well-known employer here in the Pacific Northwest. I can't say more than that, and seriously, I cannot say more than that. If I go a step over that vague comment, you will know where I work, how to find me, and where my business Twitter account can be found.

And I will get in a lot of trouble if that happens.

So I hope you will forgive me if I don't share much detail. But I can say this about the job: I love it.

I feel like this is the job that I've been working my way towards for the past decade. I'm writing. I'm doing a lot of writing, in a lot of formats. I'm working with the media. I'm building online communities. I'm at the vortex of a very large virtual community, and it's an amazing experience. All the organizing, all the fundraising, all of the odd roles I've been taking on all these years. It all had been leading to this.

I'm exactly where I want to be.

I am so deliriously happy that I feel like dancing every day. People, this is a wonderful job. And that's what I can say: that, after the difficult jobs and the weird bosses and the firings and the layoffs, I have found something that is very close to my dream job. It can happen.

The Wrong Direction

I started about a year ago, when I was weighing in around 220 lbs. I started using the LoseIt app to count calories and I started exercising regularly. I pledged to lose at least thirty pounds.

I lost about 40 pounds in nine months, and it's an amazing change for me. I feel healthier, I look better. I have more stamina than before. I can run for several blocks without feeling winded or having to reach for my albuterol inhaler.

At my best, about a month ago, I weighed in at 177 pounds - 43 pounds lost.

But things have started slipping lately. I've gotten lazier about tracking calories in LoseIt. Exercise has become more sporadic. There are reasons - mostly, it's harder to find time to exercise since I started the new job. But it's not just about being busy. It's just easier to not pay attention.

Last weekend, we went down to Portland. I ate four doughnuts - four! - from Voodoo Doughnuts and then had a fat burrito for lunch. I didn't track my calories that day.

I've been busy, but mostly, I've been lazy. I let the momentum slip, and it's starting to show. I weighed in this morning at 182. After a steady downward slope for nine months, I'm sliding in the wrong direction. I'm starting to notice my stomach again. I don't like that feeling, the feeling I had when I was heavier. I don't want to feel that way again.

So I ran for 30 minutes on the elliptical today. I'm going to go back and track everything I ate in LoseIt today. Everything - whether or not I'm over my calories for the say. I'm getting myself back on track. I refuse to let nine months of progress go down the tubes just because it's easier to be lazy than to be good.

The Thinking Place

I'm just going to make a quick observation here about the ... um ... image of Gnomedex that was left burned into all the brains of the attendees.

This is the official t-shirt that was provided to everyone who attended Gnomedex 10 this weekend in Seattle:

And here is the scene that became the most indelible (in the sense of "please, god, let this image be taken out of my brain!") image of Gnomedex:

All I've got to say is that when Jinx taps into the zeitgeist of the moment, they seriously tap into some motherfucking zeitgeist.

Idiot on a Motorcycle

I tried to figure out what was wrong with him afterward. Was he drunk? Hopped up on meth? Then I figured, nah, he was probably just buzzing on adrenalin and his own epic stupidity. He was just another angry douchebag on a motorcycle, and he had just tried to challenge me to a fight outside the grocery store where I had gone to pick up pull-ups for my son.

We ran out of pull-ups. I hopped into our boring little middle-class suburbia vehicle, so I could drive to our boring middle-class grocery store ten blocks away from our house and get pull-ups for my kid.

I turned onto a busy street, and yeah, maybe I swung into the street just a bit too quickly. I saw a motorcycle behind a van in the right lane and he seemed like he was following just a bit too closely. The rider was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and sneakers. (He looked remarkably like the guy in the picture above.)

I was in the left lane, they were in the right. I had to make a right-hand turn to get to the grocery store, so I did that instant calculation that you do in your head all the time: okay, these guys are probably going to speed up a little bit, and I'll just swing in behind them when that happens, or else I'll cut in when they slow down.

The van slowed down to make a right turn. I saw my opportunity. I started to move into the right lane - carefully, cautiously, using my turn signal appropriately - and was shocked to find the motorcycle roaring up behind me on my right. He was flying. I slowed down just fast enough to avoid sideswiping him, and then I beeped my horn at him.

It was an unconscious decision to honk the horn. It was one of those things you do without thinking. Someone does something stupid, you punctuate it with a beep on the horn. "Hey, I'm just going to make an observation here that you just did an asshole thing." Seattle people don't tend to use their horns very often, but I'm not from here, so I'll beep at any idiot who rubs me the wrong way.

It was just that fast: I turned on my blinker, I started to move, and then zip, brake, beep. It was a half-second sequence. And then the guy did something that I couldn't understand at first. He stopped his bike in the middle of the lane - forcing me to stop - cut the motor, and kicked down the kickstand. And then he started walking toward me, shouting and waving his fists.

I didn't get out. Hell, I didn't even roll down my window. I'm not stupid. (Plus, I had the air conditioning on.) So I don't know what he was saying, but I could guess. "Come on! Let's go! You wanna throw down?! Come on, bring it, motherfucker!"

I refused to bring it. I raised my open palms at him, which is the international code for "no thank you, I will decline your offer to throw down." At least, I hoped he read it that way. I was also communicating a second message: to wit, "are you out of your fucking mind?!"

A guy in the other lane had also stopped by now and he started to get out of his car, preparing to break up the fight. The fight didn't happen. Dude shouted for another few seconds and then got back on his crotch rocket and took off. It was absolutely bizarre.

I went into the store, shaken, looking over my shoulder to make sure he didn't come back to chase me down. And I bought the stupid pull-ups and drove home, still on edge.

Afterward, I tried to think about whether I had done something wrong. Did I cut him off somewhere else, in the six blocks before this incident happened? Was I being unsafe? But no. This was all on Crotch Rocket boy. If I learned nothing from the movie The Kids Are All Right, it's that guys who ride motorcycles are generally douchebags who do things without thinking.

It was scary, though, whatever the reason. It was a trivial moment that instantly escalated into violence. Or, would-be violence. One moment, I'm a normal dad running the most boring of errands. The next moment, someone's threatening to punch my lights out. I hate shit like that.

Duck!

We were reading one of Oliver's old lift-the-flap board books this morning. We turned to a picture of a cow, and I asked Oliver what kind of animal it was.

"Duck!"

I look at him, baffled. "That's a duck?"

"No. The duck that people do."

I stared him, still confused.

He stood up and then did an exaggerated bow, bending his shoulders down to waist level.

"See? Duck!"

I looked at the picture again, and sure enough, the cow was ducking down in a doorway.

The Things He Says (Five Year Old Edition)

When Oliver was younger, I loved posting about the new words he would say or the funny little phrases he would come out with. Now that he's older, his language acquisition moves so quickly that it's hard to keep up.

He still picks up new words, but usually, he surprises us by learning entire new parts of speech. Take conjunctions. Lately, he's been experimenting with the word "anyway." He uses it correctly as a verbal punctuation, to change the direction of a conversation that he's bored with. "Anyway, what are you going to get me for breakfast?" Neither of us taught him that - he just picked it up.

Right now, what I'm most impressed with is his talents as a storyteller. I'm amazed at his ability to create and wild careening stories just off the top of his head. One time, we were driving home from someplace and Oliver was falling asleep. Often, when he's tired I will tell him the story can try to keep him awake. This time, I decided to ask him tell me a story, just to see what would happen.

He began telling this crazy roller coaster of a story. I can't remember everything that was in it, but at one point, I remember there were polar bears building rockets so they could fly to Mars. The story lasted for 15 or 20 minutes and kept changing direction - adding new characters, changing scenes, shifting the landscape. And every time he changed the story dramatically, he would insert a giddy "all of a sudden..."

Mrs. B professes that she hates telling him stories, but she's managed to come up with her own special character for stories. He's called Fluffy the Cloud. She can put Fluffy in any situation - visiting Mt. Rainier, swimming in the ocean, fighting off bad guys with the help of Superman and Flash. He begs to have her tell him Fluffy stories, and he even offers to help her with the stories. "Mommy, I'll tell the middle and the end part, and you can tell the beginning part."

He is so much fun to listen to right now. He creates imaginary conversations with everything-with the stuffed animals, with his action figures, with blankets and pillows. I've even seen them start conversations with pieces of toast while he's eating his breakfast.

And he's still such a ridiculously affectionate little boy. Sometimes, I overhear his crazy little conversations between his stuffed animals or robots or whatever he's using, and I'll hear one say to the other, "I love you." The other one says back, "I love you too," and suddenly they're hugging each other.

Super Why is Awful

It's the worst children's show on television. Yes, and I know Barney is still being aired regularly. Super Why is worse. It's horrible. It's an affront to thinking parents and a shameful way to introduce children to classic literature.

Super Why is one of those shows that sprang up in the wake of Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clues. (Apparently, it's produced by the team that created Blue's Clues.) It's purportedly educational and supposedly encourages literacy - the characters talk directly to their audience and tell them to point out letters and read words and stuff like that. That's fine. A lot of shows do that, and that's not a problem. Here's the issue, though. They're murdering the classics of children's literature - the Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, Hans Christian Andersen, the stories we all remember when we were children.

They tell the stories, which is nice, I suppose. But they ruin them by retooling the morals!! They twist the fucking things around so that the moral of the story - the whole POINT of the story - is either wrong or watered down to some namby-pamby inoffensive platitude.

Example 1: they took on Hansel and Gretel in one episode. Once you sort through all the "point to the A!" crap, basically, they told the story of Hansel and Gretel. They went into the forest, they saw a witch's house made of candy, they started eating it. The witch came out and got angry. And then they revealed the "message" of the story - they should have asked permission first. Yes, sure, when you encounter a witch in the forest who wants to eat your cherubic German flesh, you should ask permission before eating her evil candy house.

That's not the goddamn story! The story is that the children are starving, the witch is evil and wants to eat them, she traps them with her candy house as bait, and they throw her in the oven and then take her gold back to their father and they never go hungry again. The moral is that witches are evil!!!!! (Of course, I mean fairy-tale witches, not any actual practical Wiccans or witches who may be reading this. Characters in fairy tales bear no relation to the real thing in real life, and I mean that referring to witches, wizards, bears, children, queens. Nothing is real in fairy tales.) It's not about asking permission. It's about many things - beware of strangers, stick together in difficult circumstances, never trust a candy house. It's not about "please, may I?"

Example 2: This was the one that finally set me off. They did "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" recently. It might be an old episode - I just saw it recently, along with Oliver. Same thing - blah blah blah read these letters, blah blah blah what's the magic word, blah blah blah let's solve the mystery! Kid keeps crying wolf, parents don't believe him, finally kid gets in trouble and parents don't believe him. Right? And the moral is - don't lie to your parents and they'll believe you when you need them. That's the moral that you and I remember from our childhood. That's the point of the story. "Crying wolf" = "lying."

Except these pinheads decided the moral of the story was "parents should believe their children." "Oh, we should have believed you," his parents lament at the end of the episode. No, they shouldn't have! The message is that telling lies will get you in trouble! This is one of those classic fables that has a scary consequence at the end - the wolf eats all the kid's sheep. There are even some versions where the kid gets eaten, too. Fables are scary for a reason.

Look, no one wants to see their kid get eaten or baked by a witch, but the heart of these fables is in the telling. By screwing around with the message of these fables, they're completely undermining their ability to educate kids. I read classic stories and fables to my kid all the time, and I'll even tell them to him as a bedtime story. I want him to remember the message behind them. Fables are for teaching morals and rules of behavior. If you want to teach someone their letters, fine. Use pointless and imaginary stories like Dora does. Don't fuck with classic stories for no good reason.

I hate Super Why. I stopped recording it on our Tivo, and I change the channel every time it comes on. I don't ever want Oliver to tell me that I got some story wrong because he heard it differently on Super Why. Stupid anti-literature show. Stupid brain-crippling piece of crap. Don't let your kid watch this show. It's horrible.

Temporarily Permanent

Still at the temp job.

It's not bad, really. It's honest work. I stay busy every day, and despite all the smack I said in a previous post about my boss, she's not actually too bad. She respects my work and makes a point of telling me I'm doing a good job.

The biggest strain, really has been financial. I've been working since late May, and I just got my first paycheck a couple of days ago. Originally, I was promised a paycheck by the second week of June. It didn't happen. We had to wait for some other company to pay our invoices before we got our paychecks, and for some reason, they couldn't be bothered to get those checks to us. Every day, I'd ask, and every day, I'd hear that there was no word when the
paycheck would arrive. It got pretty tense for a while. We were literally running out of money. Mrs. B was putting off bills, which we both hate to do. But I finally got a check, and that makes us both breathe easier.

Even though I'm "working," I'm still filing for unemployment. Filing, not collecting, because I work too much each week to collect UI benefits. I thought the job would end last week, but it looks like it's been extended for the foreseeable future. I'm earning more than I did at my last job (though working more hours and getting no fringe benefits). And I'm still sending out resumes every week. So it's odd - working, yet unemployed. Working and yet looking. I can work here as long as I want the job, at least through the end of the year. My life could be a lot worse, I suppose.

Revenge of the Lawn

I just looked at my lawn and said to myself, "I wonder why it doesn't look better."

I live in a rental home. I have never planted grass seed on my lawn. I have never fertilized it. I have clover growing wild in my lawn. Moss. Patches of thistle. Plants that I can't even recognize. It looks like a well-trimmed vacant lot.

I'm also mowing my lawn with dull blades. My lawnmower desperately needs to have the blades resharpened. Right now, it's not mowing so much as blunt force trauma. The grass grows long and crazy and points in four different directions, and there are some stretches where the mower didn't have any effect at all and the grass is just laying down, five inches long and silently mocking me.

I wonder why it doesn't look better, I thought to myself. And then I burst out laughing.

Temping It Out

Oh my gawd, dear readers. I hope I land a real job soon, because the temp job I'm doing now is stressing me the hell out.

I'm working for a few weeks for a friend, partly as a favor and partly for the money. She's not the most organized person in the world, so I get a lot of late-night phone calls and emails at 2 in the morning. The last week has been a little weird, what with not knowing what my day is going to be like until I show up in the office. It's fine for a temp job, but the level of expectation my friend has is starting to bug me.

I'm looking for a permanent job, of course. And my friend knows this, and she's been saying the right things about how my search for a permanent job has to take priority. (It really has to. In order to stay eligible for unemployment, I need to be available every day for job interviews or jobs. So legally, a permanent job has to be my priority.) But she's been talking out of both sides of her mouth - simultaneously saying that she wants to give me the time to look for a permanent job, AND that she needs me available at a moment's notice to do anything that pops into her head.

She called me today at 1 pm to see if I could do a shitload of paperwork today. That afternoon. In the next two hours.

I was with my kid, in a toy store.

Yesterday, she told me that she would be dealing with this very stack of paperwork herself. But today it got tossed in my lap, and when I said I couldn't do it, I got the passive-aggressive guilt trip about not being available. The kind of thing that happens with nonprofit work. "What do you mean you don't want to drop everything for the job? Don't you care about the work? Don't you care about THE MOVEMENT?!"

I have a bunch of job interviews next week, and she's sweating me that one of the interviews is on a day when things are going to be frantic at the office. I need a damn job, not some temporary stopgap bullshit! I do not get paid enough to be at this person's beck and call like a genie in a fucking bottle.

Never work for friends. Never, ever take a job because somebody's a friend and you want to do them a favor. Jeezus Christ on a pogo stick.

Pink Slip

For the second time in two years, I found myself cleaning out my desk this week.

Seriously. Again.

The first time, I was completely stunned. I didn't see it coming at all. I thought I was actually making good progress and was looking forward to discussing next year's goals, and instead, I was turning in my keys.

But this time...

This time, I smelled it coming. I had a really lousy week the previous week, and I knew my boss wasn't happy with me. I expected that we would have a stern conversation sometime this week. But when I walked in, and the head honcho was also sitting there, I knew things were going down.

I've definitely had some issues at work. A couple of deadlines that I was chasing pretty furiously. I was seeing this week as the week when I would prove my worth again, demonstrate again that I was the person they wanted in this position. They were taking a chance hiring me, and I wanted so badly to prove that the gamble was worth it. It WAS worth it - I learned a tremendous amount, I did some fantastic work, and I'm proud of what I did.

But I slipped. I let my anxiety and my fear of failure get the best of me, started getting sloppy on collecting information. Deadlines started creeping closer and closer. I started fibbing to my supervisor about where I was on projects. There's a thing that happens when you start falling behind and the workload never stops. You keep thinking you'll get to a spot where you can catch up, some quiet week. You think you'll work a few evenings, maybe some time on the weekend to catch up. You keep thinking that you'll catch up sometime down the road, and then the end of the road happens.

Could I have stopped this? Maybe. Did I see this coming in time? I don't think so. By the time I sensed trouble, it was already too late. Maybe I should have visited the therapist more often. Maybe I should have worked more on the weekend. Maybe ... maybe ... maybe ...

And then again, maybe it was inevitable. I was being brought in as an entry-level employee, doing way advanced-level work. Every fundraising job right now is being expected to overperform in a terrible economy; there's less money out there, but we're all being to find every available dollar. I was brought in as a rookie who was expected to perform like a ten-year veteran, and when I couldn't keep up with the frantic pace being set, I got the axe. Was it my fault for not being able to keep running, or their fault for pushing me too hard?

It doesn't matter now. What matters now is moving on. I've got to move onto another job, and this job search is going to be a little more complicated than the last one. But I'm feeling oddly relieved by this. Sure, I'm back on unemployment, and sure, I hate having to start the search process all over again. But maybe it's time to find a job that's actually at my level. This might be a genuine case where the last job wasn't a good fit, and I can use this to really find something that really matches where I'm at.

I'm feeling good about this, people. Really. If I got through the last search in the dead of the recession, I can get through this one.

Mumbleberry Pie

I quite enjoyed this NY Times article on the National. It's a great piece on a band filled with literate, brilliant, and obviously strong-willed individuals. The tension between them explains quite a bit about the music they create.

The National Agenda

Also, it contains two of the best quotes I've ever seen in the Times on any subject.

This, describing the process of perfecting a new song:

“Lemonworld,” for instance, had by now sustained upwards of 80 takes followed by upwards of 80 onslaughts of derision. Versions of the song had been fragged for being really annoying, really bombastic, really boring, really cheesy, too destabilized, really meatball, really saccharine, too sludgefest, too Dave Matthews swank and too all-fancy razzle-dazzle. At one point, Bryan worried aloud, “We’re throwing the baby out with the bath water,” to which Matt replied, “What is the baby?”

And then this description of the lead vocalist, Matt Berninger:

Over the years, Matt has accumulated a flock of snide nicknames from his band mates, including the Dark Lord, the Naysayer, Mumbleberry Pie, Mr. Knee Jerk, Mr. Sony Headphones and the Echo Chamber.

Jesus and the Silver Surfer

My son and I are hanging out in the office, watching Fantastic Four trailers on YouTube. (What?)

He sees the Silver Surfer appear onscreen. He asks if anyone knows who he is, and I say he doesn't.

"Except him?" Oliver asks.

I look at him, confused.

"Does he know himself?"

"Yes, I guess he does know himself." My son, the philosopher.

~~~

A few minutes later, he asks me if the Silver Surfer can die. I answer that I don't think he can.

"I hope he can't. I hope he's like Jesus."

Yes, that's the conversation we had on Easter: whether the Silver Surfer can rise from the dead like Jesus.

The Truth about Me

I've been living a double life, and it's time to end it.

I've been hiding my identity for years, using a pseudonym.  Most of you know that Sky Bluesky is not my real name.  Parts of the life I describe on this blog are real, and some of them are fabricated to make it harder to identify me.  I have wanted for years to tell the truth about who I am, but I had to wait until the right time when my words could no longer be used against me. I've said things on this blog that could make my professional life very difficult.

But it's time to end the mystery.  It's time for me to tell the world who I really am.  So on this day, April 1, 2010, I am removing the veil.

My name is Greg Nickels.

Yes, that Greg Nickels.  The former mayor of Seattle.  

As you can imagine, leading this double life has been extremely stressful, but it's also been a delightful creative exercise.  I have had the opportunity to craft a new life, a new family, and speak candidly through the voice of another.

• Obviously, the son I have created, Oliver, is a fabrication.  I have two wonderful children, Jacob and Carey, and I have used my memories of their youth to create the fanciful adventures of my "son" Oliver.  

• As I said, parts of my story were true.  I do live in west Seattle, as some of you know.  One of the most difficult moments in my pseudonymous life was the snowstorm in 2008, when my office was pilloried for reacting slowly to the dramatic snowfall.  Many jokes were made about whether my own neighborhood would be plowed out when so many other roads in Seattle were impassable.  I heard you, loud and clear.  I wrote about it, jokingly, but it hurt my heart that I had failed the city so badly. 

• Some of you may doubt that this is truly former Mayor Nickels, but I want you to ask yourselves:  why did Sky Bluesky never opine about the recent mayoral race in Seattle?  I couldn't, you see.  Not only were my hands tied legally, but by speaking at all about that race, it would have tipped my hand.  So I was forced to remain quiet, even though I very definitely had a favorite candidate.

• I am, in fact, a tremendous fan of Wilco.  I have had Jeff Tweedy over to my house twice, and he is a charming and decent fellow.  He took the name of his last album from my pseudonym.  We had a good laugh about that.  

• Everything about the weight loss is true, with the exception of the actual numbers.  I have been fighting my weight for years, but I feel I have finally gotten the upper hand on this.

• One more thing:  Sky Bluesky was not my original choice for my pseudonym.  As a play on my last name, I was tempted to call myself Henny Penny.  (See how clever that is?  Penny - Nickels?  Get it?)  I asked my deputy Mayor, Tim Ceis (the only member of my staff who knew about this blog) and he told me in no uncertain terms that it was not only a terrible name, but it was a lame joke.  Ah well.  

In the future, I look forward to sharing my thoughts here on the political landscape of Seattle and the country, as well as continuing to blog about my favorite music, odd stories that cross my mind, and the wonderful meals that my wife Sharon prepares.  Godspeed.

Sincerely,

Greg 

Good Knight!

Mrs. B and Oliver had the most hilarious interplay last night.  They were playing with legos or puppets or something, and Oliver decided to say that his little guy was a knight.  A good knight, not a bad knight.

O:  "I'm a good knight!"

Mrs. B: (slyly) "Good night!"

She burst out laughing.  He just got annoyed.  So he tried to explain again that he was a good knight.

Mrs. B: "Good night!"

O:  "No, I'm a knight!"

Mrs. B: "Good night!"

O:  "No!"  

And then he tried to clarify.  "There are two kinds of nights.  I'm the kind of knight that rides a horse.  I'm not the kind of night that you say when you say good night."

Mrs. B:  "Good night!"

O:  "Stop it."

That kept going for at least ten minutes, and Mrs. B and I kept cracking up every time she delivered the line.

Why Health Care Matters

Some very smart people have written about what the historic vote on health care reform means.  What it means for Republicans, what it means for Democrats, what it means for the public's view of government, what it means for the country.  I'm not going to try and retread those well-worn paths.  Let me tell you what this battle means to me.

Yes, that's right, me.  All politics is local, and all politics is personal.  So let me tell you about my journey of learning about why health care matters.

Ten years ago, I started working in the world of social justice.  I was a canvasser.  I was one of those people who knocks on your door and asks you if you have a minute, and tells you about some political issue you probably weren't thinking about, and then asks you to take action or donate money so that the fight on that political issue can continue.

It was a job.  I had just been fired from my last job and had no idea what I was going to do with my life.  It was a decent-paying job that required no experience, just the ability to make a good argument and to think on one's feet.  I could do that.  So I became a canvasser.

I became an activist, in the parlance of the movement.  We weren't just canvassers.  We were activists.  We were community organizers, sowing the seeds of grassroots power, one doorstep at a time.  

But the problem was this.  We weren't talking about revolutionary issues.  We were talking about ... health care.  Prescription drug prices.  Access to insurance.  I didn't get it.  I thought health care was a pretty middle-class issue, not very exciting, not very revolutionary.  Health care just wasn't that big a deal.  Why weren't we talking about homelessness, or defunding the military, or banning nuclear bombs?  What did health care matter?

One thing I did notice, though.  A lot of people didn't have anything to say, or didn't have time to talk.  But the ones who did would open up.  Their stories would come pouring out of them, often with tears and shaking voices and anger.  And the more I talked to people, the more I saw how important health care really was.  

I talked to men who would bring out their handwritten lists of medications - ten, fifteen, twenty different drugs - and tell me which ones they knew they had to have, and which ones they knew they could skip if they couldn't afford them.  "These pills all cost money," they explained, "and sometimes, you gotta make choices."  

I talked to people who faithfully paid their premiums every month, only to find that their insurance company refused to cover their illnesses when they became sick.  They did nothing wrong except to become sick, and their insurance companies suddenly found exemptions, exclusions, limitations in their coverage.  Profits over people.  It happens more often than any of us realize.  

I talked to people who were too young for Medicare, too ill to work, and too healthy to qualify for disability or Medicaid.  They were trapped without health insurance, holding their breath and hoping that they wouldn't get sick.  Prayer.  That was their health care plan.  Pray you don't get sick.

I talked to people who knew that if they got sick, their only choice was the emergency room.  They couldn't afford the bills.  They would get a payment plan if they had to go to the ER, and they would pay what they could, and they would fall behind, and the ER would send their account to a collection agency, and they would probably go bankrupt over it.  Over health care costs.

I brought people to Olympia to protest against the high cost of prescription drugs.  I helped organize rallies and town hall meetings to demand access to health care.  I fought with my heart and soul against proposed increases in health care costs for the poorest of the poor, against threatened termination of our state's Basic Health plan.  I met people who would weep when they thought about losing their health care.  I met people who knew they would die without health care.

I met people who are dead now.  They died because they had no health care, and they put off the visit to the doctor until the next paycheck came in.  They didn't get checked because they couldn't afford the bill, and their illnesses got worse, and then when they needed to see the doctor, their choices were emergency rooms and sliding scale clinics with lines going out the door.  Yes, people died.  Lack of health care kills people in this country, thousands of people every year.  People I knew and cared deeply about, and they died because of the injustice of our health care system.

I know that this bill will not solve everything.  I know that we - the activists, the grassroots, the netroots - have much work yet to do.  But twelve million more people are going to have access to health care now.  Medicare and Medicaid will be expanded.  More money will be available so people who can't afford health insurance can get it.  The foolish policies that kept people with pre-existing conditions from getting health insurance will go away.  Insurance companies will be banned from canceling health insurance policies when their customers get sick. 

Things are going to get better.  God willing, less people will die now because of lack of health insurance.  And when they do, goddammit, people will pay attention.  Because health care is one of the most important issues facing our country.  Our health care system is broken, deranged, a failed machine running amok.  This bill will make some long-needed repairs to the machine.  It's not a complete fix.  It's not a new machine.  But we needed a fix, and this is a good fix, and it is too long in coming.  

(Once again, thanks to the awesome Jamie Mulligan for the great canvasser picture.)

Endgame for ACORN

ACORN has been crumbling in the past few months.  Half of its state chapters have disaffiliated themselves from ACORN and reformed as independent organizations.  Now, according to the New York Times, ACORN is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy.  

The past few years have been catastrophic for ACORN, but not for the reasons most people think.  The trouble depended long before James McKeefe dressed up in his Pimps Я Us outfit and started harassing local offices.  

ACORN has had a long and troubled history.  I first learned about them when I got involved in grassroots organizing at the beginning of the last decade.  Shortly after I became an organizer, the local ACORN office was facing a strike from its own "organizers" (their term for canvassers).  They complained that they were working in unsafe conditions and not being paid fair hourly wages.  

The ugly situation peaked when ACORN strikers picketed outside the Seattle Labor Temple while ACORN management was attending coalition meetings inside.  It all ended after a NLRB ruling, a large settlement for back pay, the firing and replacement of the local office's manager, and the personal involvement of Wade Rathke, ACORN's CEO ... oh, pardon me, Chief Organizer.

Rathke, of course, was the center of a much larger scandal in 2008.  A firestorm erupted when it came to light that his brother, who was also on the salary of ACORN, had embezzled somewhere around a million dollars, or possibly more.  (The true amount has never been publicly revealed, to the best of my knowledge.)  Most companies, faced with a massive embezzlement, would call the FBI or the police.  But not ACORN, and not with the incestuous nature of the crime.  Instead, they buried the story.  A funder (apparently Drummond Pike, leader of the Tides Foundation) paid off the debt to ACORN and made a hush-hush payment arrangement with the criminal Rathke brother.  Only a select few board members ever knew about the secret, until the New York Times blew the whistle in July 2008.  

Afterward, Rathke attempted to explain why he would try to hide something this outrageous.  They - notably Rathke, the founder, CEO, and public face of ACORN - said that revealing the crime would put a "weapon" in the hands of its opponents.  But the cover-up revealed something much worse - no one was watching the books at ACORN.  They had failed the most basic test for nonprofits - they weren't keeping a close eye on their finances.  

Funders notice when things like this happen, and they reacted swiftly to the news.  By the fall of 2009, several major funders including the Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Bank of America and JPMorgan had all ceased their longstanding support of ACORN.  ACORN was sending out panicky fundraising letters with language like  "We need your help to survive."

By the time the videos started surfacing, ACORN was already on the way down.  O'Keefe was beating a dead horse.  It's possible that ACORN's crippled position made it easier for O'Keefe to get into multiple office.  But O'Keefe did not destroy ACORN.  

Republicans have been trying to make the name ACORN toxic since at least 2004.  James O'Keefe did some serious damage with his creatively edited videos and his wild stories.  (Note that no crimes have ever been charged in connection with the videos, except against O'Keefe himself.)   They were the final straw.  But ACORN's back had been broken long before. 

What actually brought it down was its own poor decisions and malfeasance.  If you want to blame someone for the collapse of ACORN, blame its founder.  Blame the man who became convinced that he could do no wrong, the man who created the house of cards and who blew it down. Wade Rathke built ACORN, and Wade Rathke deserves the blame for its collapse.  

And it's a damn shame.  ACORN has done some monumental work in its history:  fights against payday loan sharks, predatory lenders, redlining, fights for affordable housing.  They were a mighty force for good, but in the end, like so many great organizations, the hubris of its leader brought it low.  If we are fortunate, other powerful nonprofits will step in to take on the work that ACORN is no longer able to do.  We will not be better off without ACORN in the world.  

Previously:

ACORN Falls (November 6, 2009)

Dragging ACORN Through the Mud (September 23, 2009)

ACORN:  1.3 Million New Voters? (October 27, 2008)

ACORN - Demons and Smokescreens (October 20, 2008)

ACORN Haters Gotta Hate (October 13, 2008)

ACORN in Chaos (September 11, 2008)

More ACORN Fallout (August 18, 2008)

More Thoughts about ACORN (July 14, 2008)

The Fall of ACORN (July 9, 2008)

Wade Rathke - This I Pretend to Believe (February 2007)

And the Universe Began to Fold in Upon Itself...

Question from Oliver:  "Is today part of next week?"

Freddy Update

Oliver: "Last night Freddy killed 900 monsters. That's a lot!"

He explained that Freddy could make some kind of energy ball appear in his hand "and it can destroy monsters!" He told me the name of the ball, but I couldn't make it out. It was one of his nonsense words, I think, although it could have been a word learned from one of his friends at school. The concept sounds like something out of a cartoon - Dragonball Z or Pokemon? Sound familiar to anyone out there?

Monsters, Part Two: Good Monster Freddy

Is this Freddy?

The Good Monster Freddy report today:

Today, Freddy is four. Tomorrow, he will be five. The next day, he will be six.

Fun fact about Freddy: he cannot jump. (No explanation given. Maybe he doesn't have knees?!)

~ ~ ~

One day, after months of imagining monsters in every closet and around every corner, Oliver started talking about one monster who had a name, Good Monster Freddy.

(One unusual note: we don't have any friends named Freddy. I don't even think we own any storybooks with a character named Freddy. I have no earthly idea where the name came from, but that was his name and it's stuck. We've never heard him give a name to any other monster. Freddy's the only one.)

He talks about Good Monster Freddy all the time. His invisible world of monsters has transformed into one invisible and constant companion.

Oliver lives a parallel life with Freddy. When he's eating, Freddy is eating, often an identical meal. When he's waking up, Freddy is either still in bed or he's been awake "for hours!" Freddy lives in his own world, and somehow, as if he had one of those Lost-type wormholes, Oliver can see right into it and narrate the goings-on.

Freddy often comes along with us on trips and errands. We've been informed that Freddy has a tiny car that drives right under our car. Sometimes, though, he rides in the back seat with Oliver. He eats snacks with Oliver, joins him for dinner, lays down at bedtime with Oliver. He's your classic invisible friend.

We have no idea what Freddy looks like. Some days, he's tiny. Some days, he's 100 feet tall and has fifty heads and 300 arms. We've never seen him. (Obviously. Duh.)

He also don't know how old he is, because that changes every day. The only rule that he's established is that Freddy is a different age every day, and that seems to be the constant. Some days, he's one hundred. Some days (as in today), he's four. Some days he's a baby monster, some days an adult monster.

The monster war is still going on, incidentally, but it all happens through the lens of Freddy. Some days, we'll get the report that the bad monsters killed Freddy's parents. The next day (forgetting the last day's massacre), he'll tell us that Freddy killed every bad monster and ate all their heads. It changes every day.

We learn new things about Freddy every day, and some of them are completely out of left field. I'll try to post new Freddy facts as they arrive, but he's already delivered so many that I can't remember. Freddy is essentially the proxy for Oliver's ever-expanding imagination. He's the launch pad for a thousand crazy stories and wild flights of fancy. It's a hilarious and absolutely charming development.

Some day, he's going to outgrow his friend Freddy. I'm going to really miss him when that day arrives. I kinda like the guy.

Monsters, Part 1: Good Monsters, Bad Monsters

Our life is filled with monsters. Good monsters, bad monsters, nice monsters, mean monsters. They're everywhere. At least, they are to Oliver. He sees monsters everywhere he turns.

Monsters are a presence in most American kids' lives. They're in hundreds of books - from Maurice Sendak's Wild Things, to the weird creatures who inhabited Dr. Seuss' work, to modern classics like the Gruffalo (pictured above). They're just a presence, and it's small wonder that so many kids are fearful of monsters under the bed. They hear about monsters all the time - at some point, they just begin believing in them for reals.

When it started, Oliver had a typical kid's relationship to monsters: they were bad, they hid under beds and behind closet doors, and they were scary. I had a can of "monster spray" (a relabeled can of air freshener) that I would dutifully spray around his room when he thought there were monsters in there.

Then, the pattern changed. He started announcing that there were bad monsters, but that the good monsters were keeping them out of the house. I don't remember suggesting that good monsters were out there - that was all him.

And then, so gradually we didn't even notice it, the description of the monsters started getting - I don't know the right word. It started getting creative. Eccentric. Weird.

Maybe it was when he started telling us that he couldn't sleep because bad monsters were playing their instruments too loud. That's the first time I remember him getting really weird with the monster talk.

Eventually, monsters became his primary topic of conversation. Bad monsters were outside of the car, trying to pull him out of his car seat, but the good monsters wouldn't let them. Good monsters were constantly fighting with the bad monsters. Bad monsters wouldn't let him eat his food. Good monsters were directing traffic. He would talk about bad monsters who sped and disobeyed traffic rules, and the good monster police who would arrest them and put them in jail.

On some level, they were his version of angels and devils. There was a war being fought between mischievous entities - the bad monsters - and the ones who maintained order and goodness - the good monsters. He would report the skirmishes, but he was merely an observer to the battle. He couldn't change the results. He was just like Uatu, a watcher, permitted to observe but never to interfere.

He would wake up in the morning and be sad because a bad monster killed a good monster's mother. How do you placate someone who's mourning an invisible battle casualty?

He would announce the size of the opposing armies. There were a thousand good monsters, ten million bad monsters. The next day, there were five million good monsters and only a hundred bad monsters. It changed every day. Some days, he would tell us that all the bad monsters all died. The next day, it would change.

He rewrote the rules every day because, after all, it was his war. He remade the conflict every day and adjusted the players as he saw fit, like any good writer would. He would add tension, draw battle lines, create a heartbreaking loss, a triumphant victory. The only constant was the monsters. Whatever the numbers were, whatever was happening, wherever the fight was being waged, there were always good monsters and bad monsters.

And then one day, he introduced us to Freddy.

(to be continued...)

A Rough Night

Yesterday, Oliver had a multiple-meltdown afternoon. We went shopping around 4 and stopped in a Barnes & Noble for coffee and cookies. He got completely wild after that (he wanted to go to the kid's section of the bookstore and we didn't have time to go there) and threw himself on the ground. I picked him up and he hit me. Several times, about the head and the neck. He also tried to pinch me in the neck, which he knows drives me crazy and also hurts!

I sat him down on the sidewalk for a timeout. After a few minutes, I asked him if he was able to control himself. He said, no. So I picked him up and brought him to the car.

He tried to blame it on the sugar.  "The sugar made me act bad."  We told him, angrily, that he's in charge of his own body and nobody makes him behave badly except himself.  He was silent after that.  I could just feel him fuming in the back seat.  

We were planning to go out for dinner, but we told him that we might have to cancel our plans because of his behavior. Meltdown. Timeout. A few minutes later, meltdown again. More hitting. More timeouts.

After some discussion amongst ourselves, we decided to cancel going out to dinner. Which was punishing ourselves, really, but it's awful going out to dinner when he's being wild and uncontrollable. Plus, we wanted him to see hard consequences of his bad behavior. He needs to see that sometimes, just saying he's sorry doesn't fix everything.  So we told him about our decision and of course, he melted down again. Wild sobbing, more hitting, more crying, more throwing of things. 

It lasted all the way until bedtime, when he hit me on the way into the bedroom. He went to bed by himself for the first time in forever. (Which caused him to whine, "I want somebody to snuggle up with me!" It was a pretty drastic punishment, in his mind. One of us always lays down with him at bedtime.) Sigh.

And then at 3 am, Mrs. B started puking. She's got a nasty stomach bug and a fever to boot. She's upchucked a couple more times and she's been in bed all day. (it's 10:30 Seattle time, and she's still in bed.)  So it's just been me and Oliver together all morning while she recovers.   

Good news is that Oliver's behaving much better today. But there's no way in hell I'm dragging my poor pukey wife out to dinner tonight.

An Open Letter to NBC

Dear NBC Programming Geniuses,

I live in Seattle, less than three hours away from the site of the 2010 Olympics. Yet I cannot watch the Olympics events live - most of the major events appear to be tape delayed. I could read news stories, Tweets, blog posts and Facebook reports about the opening ceremonies, and even watch video highlights - but I couldn't see it in my own home on my own television until three hours after it had already happened.

You have ruined the Olympics for me. I intended to make this an opportunity to share the joy of the Olympics Games with my son. But the opening ceremonies, which started at our traditional dinner time, were tape delayed until after our son had gone to bed! So instead of sitting around the television that night, watching the opening ceremonies unfold, I was forced to record it with TiVo and show it to him the day after. The Olympics are no longer a family event for us. Thanks, NBC.

And then there's the constant irritation of watching events hours after they happen. By the time I saw Apolo Ohno win his silver medal, I already knew how the race was going to play out, thanks to the internet. Do you people not know that the internet exists?! There is no suspense, no drama, no excitement. Why watch, when I can just watch the highlights on YouTube?

Do you see what you have done? You have ruined the entire concept of the Olympics as a must-see event? You're killing your audience. I don't even feel compelled to watch the coverage at night - I can just scan the internet and find out what happened. By delaying the coverage, you're destroying the reason we watch. Your asinine decision has made me see the Olympics as a giant inconvenience, not a worldwide spectacle. I think more about NBC's terrible programming decisions than I do about the actual competition of the Olympics.

I have been watching the Olympics with my family since I was seven years old. You have successfully ruined a family tradition for me, and ruined my love of the Olympics games by making them inconvenient and pointless to watch. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Disgustedly Yours,

Sky Bluesky
Seattle, WA

300

It's a small thing, but I'll share it nonetheless.  I just broke 300 calories burned on our elliptical machine.

No, wait a second.  It's not a small thing.  This is kind of a big deal.  

We have an elliptical machine in our house.  (It's this one, if you're curious.  It's fantastic, and also has a relatively small footprint in our office.)  

When we first got it, my goal was to use it two or three times a week.  It typically was, like, once a week.  Twice if I remembered.  There was too much to do, tv shows to watch, books to read, dessert to eat.  I kept not doing it.  I kept finding excuses not to.

And also (cue whining), it was hard!  I was out of shape.  I had asthma.  My legs weren't used to exercise.  When I started, I could only do twenty minutes.  Sometimes, I would have to stop because I was gasping for air, even with regular pulls from my albuterol inhaler.  

But I got stronger.  Twenty turned into twenty-five, and twenty-five turned into thirty.

Then thirty started feeling easy.  I could burn through thirty minutes fairly effortlessly.  Now, I'm doing forty minutes and ... well, I'm not going to say I don't break a sweat, because I sweat like John Edwards in a room full of videographers.  But I can do it, and I can do it comfortably.  

What's also different is that I want to get on the elliptical now.  Every other night, Mrs. B puts Oliver to bed, and those are the nights I work out.  That means three or four times a week, and that's happening every single week.  Last week, I hopped on the machine four times for an hour and 45 minutes total, and burned 762 calories.  One recent week, I did two hours and twenty minutes on the machine, and burned over 1000 calories.  

It's a routine.  It's something I look forward to, not something I'm avoiding at all costs.  I like that.  It's a good feeling.