Signs of Resistance

"It's time to go to school."

"No," he responds calmly.

You know who's not calm? Me. 

I ask him again, twice. Finally, he changes his tune and gets himself ready to go to school.

My son is ten years old. And he's grown; my goodness, he's grown. He's become so much more confident and charming and easygoing. Much of the social anxiety that we saw in the past has dissipated. He walks into the playground and kids call his name. And (Aspie parents take note) he stops and responds!!

There are many things going well. And then ... there's the testing that he does at home.

I'll ask him to turn off the television and he'll ignore me until the third or fourth or fifth ask.

I'll tell him to go to bed and he'll start whimpering, like a puppy dog. (It's obviously fake and I don't even think he thinks it'll work. He just does it instinctively.) 

And then there is the simple act of "No." Not that he wants to put up a fight or an argument. He just quietly says "no." To everything. 

With a smile on his face.

When he was a baby, he would run experiments on us. What happens if I drop my food off the tray? What if I smear it on my cheek? Now, I think he's doing experiments again. He's testing how I'll react if he ramps up the disobedience.

So I've approached with a certain amount of caution. Sometimes I'll ignore him and just ask again. Sometimes I walk off (making sure he sees that I'm irritated) and then come back a minute later.

Sometimes, I'll crack the whip on him. I've had to use my dad voice™ more in the last two months than I did for the previous year. 

"When I ask you to do something, I expect you to do it the first time."

And then I get the whiny response. "Okaaaaaaaay!" 

The whining. I HATE the whining. 

Or I'll get the angry response. He snaps back at me as though somehow I've angered him, instead of the other way around. 

He's testing, though. And he's still an Aspie, so I know that I can't just tell him to cut it out. So I'll check him. "When you respond like that, it sounds like you're angry at me. Are you angry at me? No. Okay, well your tone says something else. So make sure your tone matches what you actually feel." 

All things considered, he's doing fine. He's just testing some boundaries right now. I need to remember that he's always going to be testing me out. What's he really doing is testing himself out. Right now, he's testing out conversation, testing out emotions. He's trying to see what he can get away with, what he does that will upset the people he loves. He's growing into an older kid who needs to figure out how this human interaction thing works. I'm doing the best I can to help. 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking

One of the most challenging moments in the day-to-day life of a parent is the unforeseen meltdown. Sometimes, kids just have the wrong thing happen to them at the wrong time and they just explode.

This isn't just true for autistic kids, although I notice it more readily with mine. He doesn't like surprises; when he doesn't get something that he's expecting (recess, dessert) or when he has to change his schedule without warning, those are the days when he's more likely to melt down.

And yes, he's ten. Meltdowns still happen when kids get older. They just take different forms.

I worry sometimes about how I respond to him after a meltdown. I can't talk to him during the meltdown - he's flooded with emotions, and all I can do is to keep him from getting worse or doing damage to something (i.e. throwing a remote control across the room). 

So I talk to him afterward, once he's calmed down. We talk.  

Usually, too much.

I'll explain to him patiently how the rules are the same as they've always been. And how he has to take school/weekend responsibilities/chores/whatever seriously.

Sometimes, I'll talk to him about how he reacts differently than he used to. How he's gotten so much more mature than he used to be, and how moments like this don't come as often as he used to. 

Sometimes, I'll ask him if there was anything I could have done differently. Wait, what?! Am I really asking him what mistake I made when he freaked out? No, not really, but yes, sort of. This is a dangerous avenue, but sometimes I go down that path anyway. I get talking, and look, I'm still a dad that hates to see his kid upset. 

And I think part of it is that he's getting older. I'm so aware that he's not the same little boy he used to be. I can't see ten-year-old him without seeing two-year-old him reflected in his eyes. And sometimes, the conversations we have are really conversations I have with myself. "How can I solve this problem? How did this maturity blossom in you without me noticing?"

Sometimes, the questions I'm asking can never be answered by him. "What are you thinking when these things happen? Do you still trust me?"

I need to shut up sometimes. I know that when it works best, he gets upset and I just step back and let him work it out. He can do it. He doesn't need coaching from me as much as he used to. And he doesn't need me to relentlessly dissect every moment of conflict with him. What he needs to know is that I love him, and that sometimes that love means cracking down on the rules and not apologizing for it afterward. 

Flashback: Back to Regular Dad

I posted this almost nine years ago on my old blog. I've been thinking a lot about my little boy, who just hit his tenth birthday. (I need to write more about him. He's amazing.)

Anyway, this seems appropriate and it's not on this blog yet, so here it is.

---

June 30, 2006

I know that ticklish spot, right under Oliver's chin, and I know that when I hit it with my bare toe just right, he goes spasmy with giggles.

I know that sometimes, his favorite thing is rolling across the floor like a log going down a hill. And that, if I gently nudge him with my foot, he'll roll and roll until he hits the window, softly giggling the whole time.

I know that he takes his naps almost like clockwork at 9 am and at 3 pm.

I know that he loves aquariums. And peekaboo. And watching birds. And watching the construction trucks that stream by our apartment. And anyone walking by our window.

I know that he smiles and occasionally waves at strangers. And he flirts with every woman who works at the grocery store, and they all flirt right back.

I know that when I eat snacks, I'd better put down a handful of Cheddar Bunnies or Veggie Booty for him, or else he'll get resentful.

I know that my little boy loves me. I know this. I know if I lay on the floor, sometimes he crawls right up to me and puts his little head against my chest for a few moments. If I'm really lucky, he'll crawl up to my face and give me a wet, sloppy, open-mouthed gooey kiss right on the lips. And that's the best thing ever.

Today is the last day I get to be a stay-at-home dad.

Mrs. B came home tonight and began her summer vacation, which is (unfairly) only six weeks. She gets a month and a half to be the primary caregiver for Oliver, while I try to find myself some gainful employment. And then, when the fall comes, both she and I will go to work, and Oliver will go to the day care seven blocks from our house.

I think back to those early days, when I worried if I was ever going to get the hang of taking care of him all day. (Actually, that first day, I was really worried if he was ever going to take a bottle from me.) Naps worried me. Feedings frightened me. I was constantly worried that I would poke him in the eye, or drop him, or something similarly awful.

And here we are, ten months later. Naps don't scare me any more. The bottles aren't even an issue anymore. We do two meals a day, two naps, hours of playing, and sometimes I'm exhausted and nap while he does and sometimes I don't even bother. I can keep up with him. He doesn't scare me anymore.

It's been nearly a year that I've been taking care of him, and we've grown so much together. I feel privileged to have had this much time with him, that we've been able to afford (barely) to do this. I have a bond with our little boy that not enough fathers get. My own father never had the connection with us from the early days that I get to have with Oliver.

Now I have to readjust to being just a regular working dad, one that drops his kid off at daycare in the morning and sees him at night for dinner and sleep. (Actually, the daycare won't start until late August, but stick with me, folks, I'm on a roll.) I won't get to see him play during the day, giddily tearing through his books or tossing around his blocks, one by one, with a squeal of glee every time one flies into the air. Those moments will just be on the weekends.

I'll miss all the intensive time with him. Hours of playing on the floor, hundreds of books read, balls tossed, blocks stacked and tumbled, messes made and cleaned and made again. I won't miss the problems: the difficult naps, the teething miseries, the days of complete distraction where he couldn't do anything for five minutes without screaming in frustration.

Well - I say I won't miss that. But I will. Because when things went wrong, I was the only one he had during the day to make things better, and almost always, I figured out how to make it better. I got him to sleep. I provided teethers and (before he had actual teeth) my fingers to soothe his aching gums. I found ways to keep him entertained. I figured out how to be his parent, the caretaker, the one he relied on. I learned how to take care of him, and he learned to trust me.

I don't ever want him to forget how much that time meant to me. I know I will never forget it.

Survivor's Rage

Another empty cubicle at my office.

We came in Monday morning and she was gone. Nobody knew what she did, who she offended, why she got the axe.

We all assume it wasn't for a rational reason. It never is. People here don't get fired because they miss their numbers or because they violated some crucial policy. It's because their supervisor didn't like them. Didn't like their attitude. They spoke up too much. They questioned too much. They showed too much independence.

We don't value independence. Our directors want people who are malleable and scared. We are intimidated, embarrassed, harassed. It's all small and subtle, often behind closed doors.

My last colleague - she was smart and passionate about her work. She read the news constantly: she was the most plugged-in person in the office. And she was loved by everybody in the office.

Almost everybody.

She dared to question the ideas of our director, and she got the axe. I don't know what happened, and I never will, in all likelihood.

In my small department, I've lost four colleagues in two years. It's a haunting thing to come in and see that empty office, and know that someone else failed the test.

My job is almost certainly fine. I have no concerns that I'll get the axe.

That's not enough. There is no job security in a place that fires someone every two to three months. There is no peace of mind when you know your entire team of colleagues might be gone in a year.

And we're just expected to carry on as though everything were normal. Our colleague is no longer spoken of. She is an unperson. She stopped existing the minute she was terminated. All of her work - it stopped. Her projects ceased to exist. Nothing she did will be mentioned again.

I have a good job. I am paid well. We have retreats in nice places and we're wined and dined. But the trade-off is too much. I've lost people I care deeply about. I've lost them for stupid silly reasons.
Because my boss decided to get rid of them.

This isn't survivor's guilt. This is survivor's rage. I'm angry that my friends - my very talented friends - are being treated so badly. I'm angry that I meet up with them months later and they're still shaken. Still questioning what they did wrong. Still wondering if the cruel things said about them are actually true.

I hate this place. I hate my boss. I hate the leadership of this toxic twisted office.

I'm sending out resumes and going on job interviews. I'm pushing as hard as I can to find somewhere else. This time, I don't want an escape hatch - I want to move up the career ladder. I have a huge palette of skills and, as one of my friends put it, I will be the answer to someone's prayers.

I want that to happen soon. I don't think I'm in danger of losing my job anytime soon. But I have learned how to survive in this toxic place, and I do it by swallowing my complaints and my anger and playing along. Going along to get along. I'm tired of it. My soul is tired, people.

A Death in the Family

My dear cat Chloe fell asleep for the last time last Friday.



Here's how we met. Chloe lived with three other cats in a house. I met a girl who lived in a room in that house. I'd go over to visit her and Chloe would come into the room and hang out with us. She would jump on my hip when I was laying down and just sit there, content, purring like mad.

Even then, she was partial to me. She could come to visit us, but she would sleep on my side of the bed. She'd rub her face up against me and I'd just pet her and pet her. We connected with each other instantly. She adopted me: I didn't adopt her. She chose me.



Chloe hated the other cats in her house. She became a bit of a thug - she would hiss and slash at the other cats when they walked down the hallway. When that girl moved out to move in with me, Chloe came with us. That girl became Mrs. B, of course.

According to her former staffer's best estimate, Chloe was six when she came to live with us. I put her in a carrier and drove her to her new home - a cinder block one-bedroom apartment. She looked around, saw that she was the only cat in the house, and began purring madly. She was home.

If the math was right, Chloe was twenty years old when she finally left this mortal coil. She stayed with us through four moves, and when I moved into my own apartment, Chloe came with me.

She was frail. Her hips were especially painful. She had hip dysplasia - her hips would slip out of joint. Also arthritis. There were days when she could barely walk across the room. She couldn't jump anymore. The kitty who used to jump up on the bathroom sink couldn't jump onto a foot-high couch.



I had cat stairs - one so she could get onto the bed, and a shorter set of stairs so she could climb onto the couch. It helped. Not enough. But the stairs helped.

She had other stuff. She had the inevitable thyroid problems. She had chronic renal disease - that was diagnosed a couple of years ago. One of her kidneys seemed to have stopped functioning completely.

Because of the kidneys and everything else, she became dehydrated easily. I was giving her fluids every other day, plus pain medicine once a day. Plus kidney medicine. Plus glucosamine in her food.

At some point, it just wasn't enough. None of it was enough, because cats get old, as we all do. Cats get old, and at some point, their life becomes just existing from day to day. One of my friends asked me if there was joy left in her life.

I like to think so. I don't like to think that she was just existing. She still ate. She still curled up with me - even when she could barely move on the bed, she would curl up next to me and purr her soft, fragile purrs. She loved being cradled and she loved being next to me. And Oliver. She was a snugglebug to the end.

Chloe would follow me from room to room, waiting for me to stop moving so she could sit down next to me. She always did this; even when she was at her weakest, she would do that. I was always her person.

Last Friday night, she fell asleep, and she was gone Saturday morning. Her body was still there. But Chloe had moved on. She was someplace where her hips didn't hurt, and where I didn't have to poke her with needles and fill her up with fluids like a water balloon. Some place where she could frolic and be free and joyful and happy.

I buried her in the backyard with one of her crinkly toys. And I cried. I cried because I missed her, and I cried because I was relieved. She was finally free of the pain and the suffering. When she decided she couldn't take anymore, she just let go.

I did the best I could with you, Chloe. It was an honor being your person and your staff. I hope you have sunshine and warm fuzzy blankets and grass to roll in. Thank you for giving so much of yourself to us and for filling our lives with joy. We will never forget you.

Fighting Inertia

I hate this.

I've gained a few pounds. I've lost some of my lung strength. I haven't been doing real cardio work in four or five months. I fell off the wagon.

I don't eat well. I don't pay as much attention to portion size as I should. I eat too much dessert when I eat it, and I nibble on mindless crap like tortilla chips.

The worst thing about falling off the wagon is that you suddenly forget you were on a wagon. Living healthy is challenging, but living sloppy is not. It's easy. You stop caring, and it's easy to keep not caring.

But I'm tired all the time, and I hate that.

I get winded too easily, and I hate that.

I could just sleep more. But I don't want to do that. I want to get myself back together.

I'm going to start chipping away on my health. A little bit at a time.

I have the equipment, I just don't use it. A situp bench. An elliptical machine. Dumbbells.

Every night, I can do a little something.

Thirty sit-ups.

Thirty push-ups.

Ten minutes on the elliptical.

Every night, I can do something.

And it's going to get easier. Thirty sit-ups will become forty-five, and then sixty, and them maybe a hundred.

Ten minutes on the elliptical will become thirty.

I'm going to get myself back together. I hate looking like this right now. I'm going to change it.

Masquerade

The words slip out easily, formed from years of practice. "This is great."

"I'm really enjoying spending time with my team."

"These retreats are always so useful."

"Your ideas are always great."

I work in a place that does good work and employs terrible people. The people in charge are shameless, petty, cruel to their staff. They pit people against each other for no reason other than the sport of it.

And so we have no esprit de corps, no team spirit. No team exists. We are a group of individuals, struggling to stay on the island and fighting to get the other one voted off.

This is a terrible way to run a business.

We get together once a year. We take a weekend to "recharge our batteries." We bond with each other with stupid games and "team-building" activities that just make everyone feel awkward and uncomfortable. We make plans for the next year, write on whiteboards and take notes on our great visions of the future.

And the directors look on, proud of their work, feeling like this year maybe it's really going to work. This is the best retreat, they think. This is the one that really succeeded.

I hate it. They put us up in a fancy hotel and buy fine food and wine for us. We are spoiled at this company. We are. I'm paid well and compensated with absurd fringe benefits. But the trade-off is that I work with people who no longer care about what they do.

The trade-off is that where I work makes my soul hurt.

I used to want to change the world. This firm has a mission of changing the world, making it a better place, helping the little people. They're all words. The cosmetic emptiness of this place is starting to drive me crazy.

I can tolerate about two straight days of this masquerade. Two days, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with this crew. Pretending to enjoy it. Pretending to value their ideas. Pretending, all pretending. Lying to their faces.

And then I go home and purge it all out. Scotch helps. TV helps. Spending time with the people I care about, that's what helps the most.

I can take my mask off and be myself again. I no longer have to pretend around the people I love, because they see me and respect me for who I am.

But at my job, all I do is pretend. I pretend their ideas are worthwhile. I pretend their feedback makes my work better. And I pretend I'm making the world a better place, when I know I'm really just here for the benefits and the pay and the security of a steady job.

This masquerade cannot last. I can't live like this, wearing masks forty hours a week.

Self-Righteous Jerks

Note: I'm only using this picture since Tuohy has already posted it publicly on Facebook and Instagram
and it's been reposted in a thousand different places. 

If you're going to be kind, be kind. Don't film yourself, post the results everywhere, and pretend that you're only doing it to prove a point.

Scenario #1: Leigh Anne Tuohy is not anyone who has ever been on my radar. I knew she was the subject of a book and of that Sandra Bullock movie, but that's all. I knew there was some talk about how that movie was basically "heroic white woman saves troubled black youth," but I'd never seen it so I couldn't say.

But then she did this.

In case you haven't been following the story, here's the gist. She owns a restaurant. Two black teenagers came into her restaurant and apparently, were acting in a way that some would find suspicious. Here's the way she describes the scene on her own Facebook page:

We see what we want! It’s the gospel truth! These two were literally huddled over in a corner table nose to nose and the person with me said “I bet they are up to no good” well you know me… I walked over, told them to scoot over. After 10 seconds of dead silence I said so whats happening at this table? I get nothing.. I then explained it was my store and they should spill it… They showed me their phones and they were texting friends trying to scrape up $3.00 each for the high school basketball game! Well they left with smiles, money for popcorn and bus fare. We gave to STOP judging people and assuming and pigeon holing people! Don’t judge a book by its cover or however you’d like to express the sentiment! Accept others and stoping seeing what you want to see!!! #LeighAnnesSundaySermon #BelieveInOthers

Jerk.

To sum up: two black kids were sitting together. Her friend says "they're up to no good." She says, oh no, you're wrong. And then she goes over, sits next to them, and demands to see their phones to prove they're not doing anything wrong!!!

Then, after they prove their innocence, she hands them some cash and then takes a picture with them!! The caption might as well be "look at these poor little black children whose lives I just turned around!" Gross exploitation.

Scenario #2: This video has been going around the social networks lately. Another "heroic" person who decided to give $100 to a homeless person.

No strings attached? Ah ha, not quite. He proceeds to record the guy's actions secretly to find out how he spends the money!!

Watch the video. It's clear that they're filming this man without his permission, at the beginning. At one point, he even tells his cameraman "just don't let him see you." At the end, once they prove to themselves that he's using the money in the right way, he admits to the poor man that he's being secretly recorded.

Would he have admitted it otherwise? This guy, Josh Paler Lin, is a guy who makes ugly prank videos on YouTube - the Bad Dad prank, the Vegas Mafia prank, the Chloroform Kidnapping prank. He thrives on exploiting people's reactions and then making money on them (via YouTube ads.) It's easy to imagine he could have filmed this man's behavior and secretly uploaded it, and never told hm at all. That's what he does.

But instead, he posts it as a feel-good story. Who's feeling good? Paler Lin has gotten 22 million hits on this video. He's making money from ads and his name gets spread all over the internet. Oh, but he's launched an IndieGogo account to raise some money for the homeless man, too.

Think about that. He found a homeless man, decided he was one of the "good" homeless people, and now he's raising money to help him out. But his message is "never judge a book by its cover."

He originally expected to film the man doing something bad - buying alcohol or drugs, maybe. In the description of the video itself, he even says "I wasn't expecting to get this kind of footage... to be honest, I thought this video would be more an exposing homeless people video at first."

Exposing homeless people? These are people on the bottom rung of society, and he's out to expose them??? This man is a bottom feeder. Shame on him for exploiting another human being for his profits. Shame on Leigh Anne Tuohy for exploiting two strangers for her own glorification.

Death and 'Serial'

I'm not listening to Serial.

I'm a voracious podcast listener. This American Life, Snap Judgment, Too Beautiful to Live, Nightvale Radio, loads of NPR podcasts. I'm the key demographic for this show.

Except I won't listen to it.

It's about a murder, as I understand it. Someone murdered someone - or maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The show digs through the evidence, interviews witnesses, and considers whether the person actually committed the crime. It's supposed to be riveting. It's supposed to be great radio. It's supposed to be a revolutionary way of using the medium.

I can't listen to it.

I've been there, you see. I've sat in a courtroom while the prosecution presented the autopsy pictures of my brother; described the wounds that were inflicted on his body; described how he died.

I've been there in the courtroom when the defense tried to challenge evidence, cast doubt as to the real killer, declared the fine character of the man accused of killing my brother.

That's just me. I don't read murder mysteries. I don't watch movies like Pulp Fiction that glorify killing and treat dead bodies like punch lines.

Interestingly, This American Life did an episode about this tendency, about how the families of murder victims end up hyper-sensitive to popular culture with references to murder. I never forgot that episode, because it nails it perfectly. Not all survivors of murder feel this way. But many of us do.

I wish nothing but the best for Serial and I hope it has a long and successful future. But I hope the next story is about robbing a bank. Or kidnapping a pig. Or stealing a piece of art. I don't want to hear about murders presented for entertainment, no matter how seriously the subject is taken. I can't be entertained by it, and I'm not the only one.

No Justice.

Darren Wilson finds himself a free man tonight.

Michael Brown is still dead. Whatever happened tonight, that never would have changed. But justice could have taken a step forward tonight.

 It didn't.

We knew that was going to happen. When they took three months to make a decision, we knew it was going to be a free pass for Wilson.

When the governor called a press conference three hours before the grand jury announcement to plead for calm, we all knew what was coming. He swore he didn't know what the decision was, but come on now, we're not stupid. Why plead for calm unless you think there might be a reason for people not to remain calm?

Ferguson has serious problems with fairness and equity. As does St. Louis. As does this country. Darren Wilson's indictment wouldn't have changed that. But it would have helped, dammit.

Indicting Wilson would have suggested that he didn't get the automatic benefit of the doubt that so many police officers receive. It would have shown America that this community wanted to see justice done.

But no. All of our suspicions were exactly right. Darren Wilson is free for killing Mike Brown. Not even a trial.

I'm tired of being disappointed by this country. But we need to channel this energy into changing the world. I'm pushing against despair. We need to fix this world, not be crushed by resignation.

Stripped

My church is rebuilding the sanctuary. The walls are bare. Studs and pipes are showing, and the floor is bare concrete until the new floor tiles are laid.

The last months have felt much like that. I've been rebuilding my own surface, stripping away unnecessary layers, putting down new walls and fortifying them. To build a new home, sometimes you have to tear away walls that you thought would always be standing.

I'll write more, but let me say this. I am at peace. I am sleeping in a new home, and the woman I married is elsewhere.

Nobody was thrown out. It was not a violent ugly separation. It was a mutual decision. We were done.

I am at peace. My son is in good shape, and we're both taking good care of him in our ways.

Half of all marriages fail. You know this. With a child with special needs, the odds are worse. Nobody knows how much worse.

Any marriage is challenging. Marriage is the deepest act of faith. It's reaching out and saying this one. This is the person I will trust. Through thick and thin. Though bankruptcy, cancer, car accidents, unpaid bills, job terminations, sicknesses, anxiety attacks, all of it. All of it.

Human life has so many twists and turns, and the act of marriage is saying to the universe, this is the person who will walk by my side through all of it. For the rest of my life, this is the person who will have my back.

And you need that person to make the same commitment.

When that commitment fails, it's devastating. When you've been running hand-in-hand for years, and suddenly you realize that the hand is no longer there, it's a shock.

I won't go into detail about what happened, when it happened, who did what. It's not necessary. But we stopped being at each other's side, somehow. Our hands slipped away from each other, and once we realized we had fallen out of pace with each other, we were too far gone to connect again.

A friend of mine asked me how it made any sense. We seemed to be a solid healthy couple, while she says that she and her husband don't even belong together.

I don't know if Mrs. B and I belonged together, but we came together. And we were at each other's sides for a long time. That's how marriage works. It's not about whether you read the same books or eat the same foods, whether you stay up late or go to sleep early together. It's about whether you stand by each other when times get difficult. That's the only prerequisite. Everything else is just detail.

More than anything, a spouse is a partner. And for me, what I realized is that if I was running by myself already, it made no sense to pretend I still had a partner by my side.

"You can ask me anything."

I don't ever want to forget the simple joys of fatherhood. Like talking to my kiddo. I love talking to him. Love hearing how his brain works and how his sense of the world has changed.

This morning, my son rolled into bed with me and started talking. He told me about a dream he had where he was fishing, and then there was something about gummy worms.

And then we talked about summer camp. And about the names for the different groups of kids - all named after different animals. Apparently, all of the animal names changed over the last year, and we mused about why that might have happened.

And we just talked about, I don't know, stuff. We just talked.

It matters to me that he's comfortable talking to me. I want to remind myself that I need to pay attention to him. Too often, I'll be talking to him while browsing on my phone. Everyone does it these days, it's what we do. It's part of our overwired, overstimulated world. But I'm trying to force myself to put the phone down more so I can listen to him.

He's nine now. He won't be nine forever. He's already two months past his ninth birthday. Ten months to go, and then he's ten. Then eleven. Then he's older and older and he's a different person completely.

I want to cherish this time I have with him right now, with this kid as he is right now. I love seeing his brain develop and his words become more refined and enriched.

When he goes to bed at night, he asks me questions. It happens every night. Right as I'm about to turn his light out, he starts with the questions. Simple silly ones. "Which fishie in that picture is your favorite? Do you like meerkats or ferrets more?"

Or he'll walk that fine line between profound and ridiculous. "Dad? What if there were monkeys all over the roof and they were just waiting for us to go to sleep, and then they ran all around our backyard?"

"Dad? What if there was a giant robot from space, and he picked up this whole entire house in his hand and took us away to space?"

Or sometimes he talks about things that happen during his day. Sometimes, he just needs to process the events of the day, and he uses me as a sounding board. I love playing that part. I always want to be his sounding board. I know that's going to change, but I always want him to know he can ask me the questions that he can't get out of his head. I'm always there for him.

"Dad? Can I ask you something?" That's how he starts the conversation.

I always answer the same way. "You can ask me anything, son."

Nonprofit - Dream vs. Reality

I forget sometimes. I forget that I don't work for angels and wood spirits. I work for people. And people behave as people.

Sometimes, I get caught up in the dream. I believe that we're all working for a common good, for the sake of making the world a better place.

I believe them when they say they want us all to be players on the same team. That the most important thing is that we all support each other and work towards the same common goal.

I mean, I work for a nonprofit. We're supposed to be about the mission, right?

And then it happens. Something comes down from on high, and I remember that I work for a boss. For a CEO. Someone whose driving purpose is making sure we all remember who's in charge.

So we'll all get lectured at the all-staff meeting about something that seems small, but apparently was earth-shaking in its importance. We'll all get scolded for forgetting about the mission - but in fact, it's because we forgot to honor the boss' whims. We didn't genuflect with appropriate humility.

Or we'll all be looking forward to a staff event - a party, a celebration, an outing - only to find out it's been cancelled because the CEO said so. Because we didn't appear to be taking our work seriously enough.

It's very much in the pattern of an abusive relationship, I would imagine. (I'm fortunate that I've never truly been in one.) We're constantly being kept off-balance. So the end result is that we're never actually working for the mission. We're working for the CEO. Our job is honoring the boss' wishes, no matter how unusual or offbase they seem. The boss likes meetings a certain way. The boss wants to be addressed in this way. The boss wants visitors to talk about this, not talk about that.Don't upset the boss. Don't rattle the cage.

And never, ever question the boss. Don't ever challenge our decisions, our campaigns, our mission (e.g. the boss' way of carrying out the mission.) That would be disloyal.

Look. Our job in the nonprofit world is rattling cages. We are supposed to be changing the status quo. If we're constantly worried about not upsetting the boss, how are we ever supposed to focus on upsetting the power brokers and decision makers?

And that's when the disappointment hits.

I want to work for a mission, not a petty tyrant. I want my work to be fighting for the afflicted and the poor, not fighting for my job. I'm tired of working for a boss more interested in their reputation and glorification than in actually making change.

"I know."

Sometimes, my son gets stuck in repeating himself. Usually, it's the same phrase or variations on a phrase. This might be an Asperger's trait, or it could just because he's an eight-year-old kid and that's what they do. I don't know.

Sometimes, he'll spin the same phrase multiple ways. Variations on one phrase. "Happy birthday to you. Happy flurth-day to you. Happy earth day to you. Happy death day. Happy smurth day." Just goofin around.

So anyway, yesterday, he didn't realize he was repeating himself. "Dad? I love you."

"I love you too, son."

Two minutes later. "Dad, I love you."

"Love you too."

A few minutes later. "Dad, I love you."

"Son?" He stopped to look at me.

"I love you too."

He looked back at me. "I know you do."

That was the best answer. It's important that he loves me. But its so so so much more important that he knows that I love him. And that his mother loves him. I can't think of a better way to start the day than with that reassurance. He knows. I've done my job, then.

Fuck Cancer

There's a guy I know. I've known him for over a decade because we were part of an amazing community forum, Table Talk, which used to be part of Salon before the Powers that Be shut it down. (It's not profitable! OMG, how are we going to afford to pay Camille Paglia?!)

He made me howl with laughter with his witty parodies of songs, rewritten to match the politics of the day. He challenged me, frustrated me, and informed me with his brilliant political insights. He is warm, genuine, thoughtful, and a truly genuinely nice guy.

I saw him get married to another online friend. I watched the joy that lived within both of them multiply and radiate out like joyous solar flares. They were so happy together.

Are. They are happy together.

My friend MacDaffy is dying.

My friend, who I never met. My friend who has been part of my life for a decade and has made it better for his presence. I knew he was struggling with cancer, but it seemed like he had it under control. As much as you can control that wild rabid beast.

Last week, he was posting speculation about the Malaysia Airlines plane crash, and chatting about basketball and pop culture, the stuff we all talk about. Watercooler stuff.

And then suddenly I started seeing posts on Facebook. Posts saying goodbye.  And then I saw what was happening. The cancer was rampaging, and it was winning, and his time was short.

I wish I had met you in person, my friend. But I loved sharing online space with you. I am grateful for all of the time I got to spend with you, and I'm so glad you found such epic happiness. Love and light to you both.

And, as another online friend says with terrifyingly heartfelt conviction, Fuck Cancer. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck cancer. Goddamn you for taking so many great people from us too soon.

Down by the Riverside

I was fourteen years old when I heard this song and sang it for the first time.

I was a freshman in high school in northern Colorado. There was a protest in Cheyenne, Wyoming, against the MX missiles that Ronald Reagan wanted to deploy as "protection" against the Soviet Union.

I saw a sign somewhere about the protest, and something in me clicked. I had to go. Religious people talk about being called, and for the first time, I felt like I was being called to do something. I had to go to this protest. I needed to.

I didn't own a car, so I hitchhiked up north to Wyoming. (My dad knew, and he was good with it. My brother was hitchhiking around the country - how bad could it be hitchhiking fifty miles north?) And I found my people. We drove together to one of the missile silos that dotted the prairie in Wyoming. We were a small group, and there were a lot of people in their forties and fifties. At fourteen, I was the youngest person there, but I was welcomed.

And we sang. And we talked about the insanity of waging war for the sake of peace. And we sang some more. Because that's what people do when they're together. They sing. We raise our voices together and find our harmony and find our common bond.

I have never forgotten that day. Standing, hand in hand, surrounding a nuclear missile silo with love and song and our wishes for peace. It made me who I am, that moment. And Pete Seeger's songs were there.

Jim Hightower, who knew Pete Seeger for over forty years, said it best. "It never occurred to me that Pete Seeger could die, for I thought of him as a permanent piece of America--like the Bill of Rights."

This was a man who met with Occupy Wall Street protestors, and who stood up to Joe McCarthy's red baiting. He sang songs of protest for over seventy years. He wasn't especially rich, didn't have an entourage, didn't cause earthquakes of damage and destruction behind him. He was a man with a banjo, who brought people together with song. And he did it again, and again, and again.

He wrote "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

He wrote "Turn, Turn, Turn." (Well, he adapted it from Ecclesiastes, but he did that. And what a profound thing to do, to turn a chapter of the Bible into one of the finest peace songs on the planet.)

He wrote "If I Had a Hammer." Doesn't that seem like a song that has always existed? But someone had to bring that metaphor into life, and Pete Seeger did it.

He wrote "Little Boxes." If you've ever seen an episode of "Weeds," you know that song. It's one of my dad's favorite songs.

He helped to adapt old spirituals into the song "We Shall Overcome." He's given songwriting credit for it, but he refused to accept royalties for the song. Instead, all of the royalties go to a center in Tennessee that trains the leaders of tomorrow.

He lived his life and his ideals out loud, for the world to see. He was not a perfect man, as none of us are. But goddamn if he wasn't a man worth admiring. I loved Pete Seeger and admired him and cried for him when he died. For my loss, and the world's loss.

The best thing we can all do to honor Pete Seeger is to lift our voices together. He spent his life fighting for a world of peace, a world of harmony and love and care for each other. Let us all recommit ourselves to bringing Pete Seeger's vision into reality.

Proud

I made my son an omelette a few weeks ago, and he decided it was the best food he'd ever eaten. He's eaten omelettes nearly every morning since then.

Most days, he'd ask me for help cutting it up. Motor skills are a challenge with our little guy, so we try to encourage him to work on them as much as possible. But when he's hungry, I'll break down and cut his food for him. Boy's got to eat.

But I've tried to get him to do it. One day I noticed he ate his entire omelette without asking for help. I was so impressed. Then I  noticed that the knife and fork were spotless. He never used them. He just picked the omelette up with his fingers, like a hamburger or something. 

But I still gave him credit. Even if he didn't do what I expected, he found a solution without asking for help. That's what you do as a parent, especially if your kiddo has special needs. A victory is a victory. 

But then this happened. 

All I did was hand him the omelette and the fork and knife. The rest was all him. I didn't even notice at first what he'd done. And then I did. And I got a big grin on my face, and I told him how proud I was of him. He was grinning too. 

This was a good morning. 

Obliterate Me

I love music. I listen to music constantly - for company, for motivation, for relaxation. And sometimes, when my hamster brain is moving at a frenetic pace, I need music to overwhelm me and take over my senses. There is some music that I listen to because I know it will demolish everything in my head and force me to listen listen listen listen dammit listen.

Music like this has a few basic requirements. It has to want to be played loud. It needs to be busy - every beat needs to be filled up with percussion, guitar, blips, samples, background singing, handclaps, something. It should be relentless. Vocals should not be subtle. Quiet is fine, but it should be intense quiet that builds to something larger and more explosive.

This is a short list I turn to when I need to be obliterated by sound. These are my songs. I want to hear about yours. Let me know in the comments.

Wilco -

"Misunderstood"



"Poor Places"


Radiohead -

"The National Anthem"


Radiohead - The National Anthem(live SNL) from amnesiac440 on Vimeo.

"There There"


Temple of the Dog - "Reach Down"
(Note: this song deserves its own blog post, but I'll write that another day.)



The The - "Boiling Point"



Michael Jackson - "Don't Stop ('til You Get Enough)"


Gang of Four - "Anthrax"



Bob Mould - "Black Sheets of Rain"

Faith Restored

I figured he'd be miserable. It was election night and his guy lost.

I came to the election night party late. After the results had come in. I knew. We all knew. It was one of the races that was decided early. I arrived around ten, bought a drink, gave my friend a hug and asked him how he was doing.  And he surprised me. He said he was doing great.

My friend, B__, he's been doing political work for a long time. He's run a lot of campaigns. Some great, some disappointing. You win some, you lose some. It's a job. Even though he's young (younger than me), sometimes I see him as a grizzled old veteran of the political wars. He just does the job for whoever hires him. And that's where I was wrong.

B__ told me how proud he was to have worked on this campaign. He told me about the thousands of hours of volunteer service that the campaign had gotten. How he was the only paid staffer on a citywide campaign (!)  and yet, he was never the first person in the office. There was always some bright-eyed volunteer who got into the office before him because they just couldn't wait to get started.

And B__ told me about his candidate. Told me how proud he was to have worked for the candidate. He wasn't perfect, but he was dedicated to public service. He made decisions and he stuck with them, damn the consequences. And he was sincere. Too sincere, in fact, to make it as a politician.

But he had made an impression. Even in losing, he had made B__ proud to know him and work for him. And I think that this campaign, this losing quixotic campaign, renewed his faith in politics.

I believe in politics because I believe in people. I started in politics as a community organizer, and you have to believe in people to organize. You need to have a hard-wired belief that people are essentially good and that they will, given the choice, decide to do the best thing for the most people. That's politics, at its essence. That's what it's all about.

Politicians don't get into the job because they want to destroy people, or wield unrelenting  power. They do it because they care -  about their communities, about their neighbors, the kids on their block, the homeless people in their alleys. And political campaigners like B__ are seduced into the job. They fall in love with a candidate, and they devote themselves to a candidate. And win or lose, it's that love for the first candidate that they always hold onto. Sometimes it can just turn into a job. But at its heart, politics - and even political campaigns - come down to love.

I was proud that night to see that my friend wasn't mourning. There was fire in his eyes. He had rekindled his love for a public servant, someone who would rather be wrong than be victorious. He saw the goodness in his candidate and in the pursuit of victory for him. And he saw, for a brief few weeks, that that was the reason he'd gotten into politics in the field place.

Moment of Clarity

I've talked about my brother before. But I don't know if I've ever talked about what happened during his trial.

It had been several years since he died. We sorta gave up on the idea that his killers would ever be found. We knew who had done it, but they had fled the state and New Orleans' police was overwhelmed. This was before Katrina, and they were overwhelmed then. Too many outstanding warrants, too few cops.

And then my dad got a phone call. They had caught one of the suspects. The killers. And they wanted to fly us down for his trial. So my dad and I went down.

It was an odd time for me. I was going through bankruptcy, had had a relationship fall apart, and was rebuilding myself. My life was in complete flux.

So we flew down. I saw the guy who did it, sitting in the front row with his lawyer. He looked at me and did a double-take, like he'd seen a ghost. I look a lot like my brother, and maybe he thought he was being haunted. I hope he did.

I stayed for as long during the trial as I could, and then, when they started showing evidence, I left.  I took some time in the city to think, and as I left the room, I saw the family of the suspect. They were upset. Not because of what their son had done. They were in denial. They couldn't believe he had been accused of such a thing.

While I waited for the trial to end, I thought about the penalty phase. He was in Louisiana, which still had the death penalty. Would I accept someone being killed on my behalf?  After all, that's what it was all about. The state was enacting justice - killing him - on behalf of the victims. Me, my brother, and my dad.

I had thought about execution before, and I went back and forth and back and forth. Was it right? Was the death penalty ever justified? What about when it was my own family member? Was it different when it was my own family, the brother I had known for nearly 30 years, who was the victim? Where would I fall? It was a deep and wrenching struggle inside my heart.

I had talked to people who thought the purest form of the death penalty would be to allow the victim's family to carry it out personally against the killer. I thought was a bit brutal. Still, there was truth in that.

When he was convicted, I looked over at his parents again. They were crushed. The reality of what he had actually done - it devastated them.

I made a decision.

I went over to them and introduced myself. They had seen me of course, but they didn't know who I was, not by name. I was just "the victim's brother." I introduced myself. And I said that I didn't want the state to ask for the death penalty. And I said that if they did push for the death penalty, I would do anything in my power to help them fight it.

That was it. It was as simple as that.

I didn't feel conflicted. You think that when you make huge decisions like that, it's going to feel like you're still struggling. It doesn't. It felt like a cloudy day had suddenly turned to blue sky. Once I knew what I would do, I stopped caring if it was the best decision, the most reasonable decision. I stopped worrying what people would think. People like my dad. Or the prosecutor. It didn't matter. Because I was doing the right thing.

The prosecutor was a little stunned. He came up to me afterward and said that if I felt that way, I should have just told him. I didn't really know how to respond. I hadn't felt that way when the trial started. I didn't know until I knew.

These pure moments of clarity don't happen very often in one's life, but they're intensely powerful. It was the closest I've ever felt to following my heart. It was an incredibly serene feeling. You don't know it's going to happen until you know. And once you know, you look back and wonder why it was so hard to see.

I started going to church after that happened. Not because of it, but because I felt like church was a thing I needed in my life. I realized that that moment was something that the church describes as grace. A feeling of giving that is unmotivated by reward. The act of giving compassionately and generously. I let go of my anger and my desire for vengeance, and I accepted that my humanity and the killer's humanity were both valuable. I let go. I accepted that I could let it go.

Sometimes, you won't know the right thing to do until it's staring right at you. And when those moments come, don't worry about what you should do, or what the best argument would be, or what intellectually would be the best course of action. Listen to your heart. If you're right, then your heart will tell you. And if you listen to your heart, it is always the right thing to do.