I'm Too Normal for This

Just because we play with balls doesn't mean you have to be a dick.

2009-07-09T22:05:00.003-04:00

So it's the bottom of the sixth. Up until we started this inning, we've been matching this team run for run and were only down by one. All we had to do was get three outs and we'd be up in the top of the seventh (well, the rest of the team, anyway ... I had been subbed out). Unfortunately, it was time for our one horrible inning and we couldn't get that first out. Run after run scored. We got one out, another couple of runs scored, and we got another out. It looked like we were starting to settle down a little and that third out was coming. But before we could pitch to the next batter, we heard "That's game, blue!" from their dugout.

The guys on the bench and I were confused. The umpire asked for the score. We were down by 10 runs. He conferred with their team member and then called the game. We'd been mercy ruled.

Now normally I don't give a shit about being mercy ruled. It's happened before. But in the very least, the umpire allows us to finish out the inning, especially when we have time remaining. And if he had called it, I wouldn't have been annoyed, but the fact that someone over on the other bench pointed it out? Dick move. Seriously diiiiiiiiiiiiick move.

And that got me thinking. What are the biggest dick moves that you can pull in rec league softball? Like, what are the really annoying things that people do that show that: a) they take the game way too seriously, b) are overcompetitive assholes, or c) are simply assholes? Well, here are my top five ...

1. Taking an extra base when the play is clearly over and the infielder is simply getting the ball back to the pitcher. Thankfully I've seen a crackdown on this, where the umpire will call "Time!" before this can happen, but I have played plenty of teams where a runner will run for the next base while you're getting the ball in after the play is over. Of course, the bad thing to do is actually try to get him out because that will result in an error and another base. I know it's a mental thing, too, in that you'll get really frustrated by having someone do this to you, and I know it technically is legal, but it seems like cheating to me. Like, let your next batter get you over.

2. Taking a walk when you are more than three runs ahead. Look, I get it if you're in a close game, especially one of those "you get two, we get two" games that really comes down to the wire. That's when you go ahead and be patient with the pitches and take a walk, especially when you're in a coed league that allows guys to take second (this way you can't pitch around the guys to get to the girls). In cases like that, every runner counts because that can be the difference in the game. But if you're kicking serious ass and you're taking balls that are only slightly out of the strike zone? That's bullshit. Grow a pair and swing the bat.

3. Chatter that involves making calls or inappropriate banter with the umpire. There's cracking a few jokes with the ump about a call or banter nicely between opponents ... and then there's making jokes with the ump every inning to the point where you wonder if the ump is wearing the opposing team's jersey underneath, or yelling "BAM!" every single time a batter gets a hit. The worst, though, are those who call "SAFE!" or "OUT!" on close plays. Uh, last time I checked ... YOU WERE NOT THE UMPIRE, ASSHOLE!!!

4. Sliding when it's not necessary. I do this. Probably more times than I should. I used to do it all the time in college, but in my defense it was on those days when the turf was wet and if you've ever slid on wet artificial turf, it's REALLY fun. But did the guy in tonight's game really need to beat out the throw to third with a Pete Rose-esque head-first slide? I wouldn't bet on it.

5. Filing a protest. The mother, I think, of all dick moves in softball. Unless the game is a playoff or championship game, do you really need to call the league office and file a protest because a call was too close or one of the people on the other team is actually someone they picked up at the last minute so they didn't have to forfeit?

I often wonder what really goes through the heads of those people who have to go all out like that because they have to win. Can't you just have fun and go for beers afterwards? I mean, I'm kinda glad that next Thursday will probably be my last game.

Happy Birthday!

2009-07-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

Starting my blog two years ago on this day was not arbitrary. It was Amanda's 30th birthday and as I used the "30" thing to transition from one meaningless "writing" project to another, I felt that July 8 was more of a milestone than my own birthday. That's because the two of us have been together since we were 19 and while this may sound cliche, I've marked so many special occasions and milestones with her, I couldn't think of doing anything without her.

Today, she is 32. I've got some stuff planned, plus we have a great weekend coming up. And hopefully Brett will be able to say "Happy Birthday Mommy!" without saying "Brett's birthday in two minutes" immediately afterward. And not throw one of his trademark "WATCH GABBA!!!" fits (although that will take a small miracle).

Anyway, when you're together this long you start to approach that "running out of new things to say" point -- you know, where talking about everything that is great about her seems forced, rather than genuine. Not that I haven't had anything great to say for today, but what is great is that she inadvertently gave it to me tonight.

We were sitting at the dinnertable watching the "Careful" episode of Yo Gabba Gabba! The Gabba gang was singing "Don't Throw Things at Friends" and Amanda was telling me how the segment that preceded the song was misleading because Muno's throwing a snowball at Plex and knocking him out was really not intentional -- the snowball was part of a game with Tootie and Muno has really bad aim. I mentioned that in "Differences," Tootie and Brobee make fun of Muno having his glasses, resulting in Foofa singing "Don't Say Mean Things to Friends"; however, Tootie was there when Muno got his glasses and didn't seem to have much problem with it.

Yeah, I know we probably should have been enjoying the fact that our son was quiet and not throwing food instead of discussing the plot holes in children's programming, but this is one of the many, many things that makes her awesome. No, seriously. Amanda has a great sense of humor and wit, and I think that anyone would be lucky to be married to someone who peppers conversation with Simpsons references. Just sayin'.

But it doesn't end there. She is brilliant, and great for conversation about just anything. She kicks my ass EVERY SINGLE TIME at Scrabble (this is what I get for marrying an English major). She has excellent taste. She loves sports and knows sports (especially football) very well. And she is sexy. Very sexy.

I mean, I think of all the things I have done with her and because of her and just how fun things are because of her and with her. Nothing else compares.

And in honor of her on her 32nd birthday, I present a video clip that is in the Pantheon of Awesome ...

Halfway There (100 Books ... 50 Left)

2009-07-05T22:35:00.004-04:00

47. Columbine by Dave Cullen
48. Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Scriver
49. Green Lantern: No Fear by Geoff Johns and several artists
50. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

You can read my post on Columbine over at Stop Trying to Inspire Me.

At the halfway point, I still seem to be in my "comic book" phase, but I think that's ending because the Green Lantern trades were ones I recently nabbed with an Amazon gift card. I have been a casual fan of Green Lantern for years but never really committed to buying the book beyond a few issues here and there; however, when Geoff Johns took over with Rebirth (and helped jump-start its sister series Green Lantern Corps), I began to take more notice. After the company-wide crossover, Infinite Crisis, I was hooked, and read the book until I stopped buying monthly comics altogether.

So, what I'm doing is going back to the beginning of the current series--about five years--and reading everything. The story is this: the Green Lantern you remember from Super Friends is actually one of thousands of lanterns who make up an army of universal protectors. His name is Hal Jordan and he was considered the "greatest" lantern (running a close second, btw, is John Stewart, the African-American GL who was in the Justice League cartoon. He was also a GL and a major player in the comics through the 1980s and 1990s). Back in the mid-1990s, he went nuts, killed nearly every other Green Lantern and became a villain named Parallax. The last remaining GL ring was given to a guy named Kyle Rayner and he was the lone Green Lantern for the better part of the next 10 years. Jordan, as Parallax, died in a self-sacrifice/redemption story and then became The Spectre, God's spirit of vengance.

That's where we are when Rebirth starts, and Jordan is brought back to fight Parallax, which isn't him, but the living embodiment of fear who once possessed him and was the reason that Green Lanterns had a weakness for yellow (there is a spectrum of "power," each corresponding to a feeling and in a later storyline we see lanterns of each color--red=anger, orange=green, yellow=fear, green=willpower, blue=hope, indigo=compassion, violent=love, and black=death). He survives and No Fear is about reestablishing him as a hero and seeing the reactions of some of his longtime villains when they realize he has come back.

Johns is a great writer and is obviously at work on a science fiction epic. Rebirth is a great jumping on point and does a great job at taking what are some of the more ridiculous comic stories of the past and making them work; he has a deep understanding of DC continuity but definitely knows how to get a newbie hooked. With No Fear, he starts laying the groundwork for a much bigger story that will make you want the second collection and the third and anything thereafter, as the current Blackest Night storyline has its roots in the very first pages of Rebirth. But it's not just sci-fi geeky, it's pretty badass. Hal Jordan is a gunslinger, a Captain Kirk/Han Solo type who se flaws make him more interesting than the constantly heroic Superman or always brooding Batman.

As for To Kill a Mockingbird, this was the third time I have read it and this fall will mark the first time I am teaching it. This is one of those novels that I don't think I will ever tire of, and I found myself seeing a lot more than I remembered when I read it as a sophomore in high school and right after college. It's honestly one of those "you must read this before you die" books for me and I could gush about it for 1000 more words but anyone who is reading this (both of you) probably already knows that and if you don't you should. Go out. Read it. NOW.

Whew. Halfway there. Coming soon: Wuthering Heights, more American history, nomal people, and The 'Mats.

10 Random Thoughts (Because I Have Nothing Lengthy to Write About)

2009-07-02T08:58:00.002-04:00

1. So hopefully by the end of the day today we should have 7 new leland cyprus trees planted along our tree line in an effort to block out all of the shit in the neighbor's yard. My dad has said that in order for them to grow, I need to make sure I water them on a regular basis. This brings back memories of childhood summers when I had to water the plants along the driveway fence and in the back yard every single day.

2. I'm driving home yesterday and am almost to my house but have to sit in traffic because for some reason people slow down at the green light for the intersection of 29 and Frays Mill Road. Seriously, what is it with people? Anyway, I say, "Come on, people!" and a moment later I hear "Come on, people!" from behind me followed by baby laughter. At least I wasn't cursing.

3. The softball retirement tour continues with tonight's game. I've got another on Sunday night (a makeup game from a rainout) and then a couple of Thursday night games. My time to hit a ball over the fence for a home run is running out.

4. Last night, we're watching the news and see a report that Michael Jackson reportedly has a vault of unreleased recordings. Amanda says, "Come on, Tupac that shit up!"

5. Summer school ends today. Then, I've got some SOL review sessions from the 14th-16th and a yearbook workshop the following week. Then, nothing school-related until August 17. Sweet!

6. With more time on my hands, it's time to enact my "clean out the crap" plan ... or at least resurrect it. This includes: getting the radiator of my car fixed, cleaning the office, selling more comics on eBay, and losing 10-20 pounds. I've made a little bit of progress on some of that and the car goes into the shop on Monday.

7. Fantasy football draft is set for August 22. I think this year I'm actually going to buy a magazine and study up so that I don't finish in dead last. Also, new team name this year. Monkey Trauma Center was awesome, so I'm going to struggle to top that. I'm thinking Editor-in-Chimp? Maybe The Cunning Linguist? I don't know.

8. I'm slowly becoming a podcast dork.

9. But not as much as I'm becoming a playlist dork. Though I love my '90s alternative/grunge playlist I just put together.

10. Also on the summer schedule is a vacation to Williamsburg. We're staying at a resort and going to Busch Gardens. Considering that's where I lost my looping roller coaster virginity. We've gotten a travel toddler bed for Brett. He calls it his "special bed" and we're working on it for him at naptime.

Holy 1980s, Batman! (100 Books ... 54 Left)

2009-06-29T09:06:00.002-04:00

43. Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli
44. Batman: Year Two by Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane
45. Batman: Full Circle by Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis
46. Batman: A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, and Mike DeCarlo

I think that rereading Crisis and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow is what prompted me to pick up these particular dark knight works that I haven't read in the better part of a decade and a half. They're some of the more prominent late-1980s Batman stories (some others include the Ten Nights of the Beast story as well as Gotham By Gaslight, which places Batman in the late 19th Century and has him solve the crime of Jack the Ripper), as post-Crisis, DC wanted to retell the origins of each of its major characters, keeping most of the more famous elements but updating them for a more modern audience (see also John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries).

Miller does this very well in Year One. He tells a story of a young Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham after training for at least a few years to become a vigilante; concurrently, Lieutenant James Gordon arrives in Gotham after transferring from Chicago (Gordon becomes commissioner in Year Two). The villains in this story are not the usual ones you expect from a Batman story; instead, they are the Gotham mafia and the corruption that lies within the police department and city hall. Miller's story and Mazzucchelli's art are excellent film noir fare and the parallel stories of Gordon's fight against police corruption as well as his marital problems, and Bruce Wayne's becoming Batman and creating the "millionaire playboy" persona are excellently told (a great subplot, btw, is the origin of Catwoman as a prostitute who decides to become a thief and the presence of a pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent, still a prosecuter).

Year Two, however, doesn't hold up as well. When I was 13 and read it for the first time, I was blown away by the artwork and the villain. It's not Gotham corruption that Batman fights against, it is The Reaper, a vigilante who terrorized the criminal element of Gotham back in the 1960s and has returned. The difference between Batman and The Reaper is that The Reaper kills in a gruesome fashion. After Batman encounters The Reaper the first time, he decides he needs to use a gun to combat him, and he also needs to ally himself with Gotham's criminal underworld. This causes a rift between him and Commissioner Gordon and also causes him to be "partnered" with Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents. In Full Circle, The Reaper returns although the person in the costume is Joe Chill's son, who found The Reaper's costume after the original Reaper fell to his death in Year Two.

Both Year Two and Full Circle don't really do it for me anymore, although I can totally see why I loved them when I was 13. The reason Batman has to use a gun (not only a gun but the gun that killed his parents) never seems that clear, as well as the total coincidence of him being paired with his father's killer (also, The Reaper happens to be the father of the woman Bruce Wayne is dating--how conveeeeeeeeeeenient) seems contrived. The Reaper himself seems like he's a product of the decade, when Marvel was still overtaking DC in a lot of ways, because the villain is a cross between Wolverine and The Punisher, both of whom were outselling Batman like crazy (Batman would fight The Punisher in a crossover book in the 1990s and there is a brief, hilarious encounter between the two in the JLA/Avengers book). Both Davis and McFarlane went on to do Marvel books shortly after this--Davis did the X-Men-related book Excalibur and McFarlane became a superstar with Spider-Man (and would leave Marvel to create Spawn), so it makes sense that Year Two and Full Circle lack the nuance of Year One.

A Death in the Family, on the other hand, is a disaster. This is easily the most famous storyline from the 1980s because it's the one where Robin dies. As explained in the introduction, a few years before this story, Dick Grayson, who had been Robin since 1940, quit being Robin to become Nightwing (he is actually currently Batman ... Bruce Wayne "died" at the end of Final Crisis) and lead the Teen Titans. What the writers of Batman did was give Batman a new Robin, Jason Todd. According to his origin, which is recounted in A Death in the Family, Batman found Jason trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile and took him in then trained him to be Robin (yeah, it doesn't make sense to me and it makes even less sense than Dick Grayson's origin but we'll go with it).

Thing is, this version of Robin didn't really work. The fans didn't like him that much and DC obviously wanted to return the character to his darker roots, as Miller had done with Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, so they created a storyline wherein at the end of Batman #427, Robin was caught in an explosion and fans could call one of two 1-900 numbers to vote on whether or not he lived or died. He died by a slim margin of a couple hundred votes, and the story accomplished what it set out to do because over the next couple of years, Batman became a darker character and even when a new Robin was introduced (Tim Drake this time), the darkness stayed (probably because the company allowed Robin more independence and there were quite a number of Batman stories without Robin).

The story itself is pretty awful. Robin is "grounded" by Batman because while on a drugbust, he blows his cover and acts impulsively. This causes him to "go for a long walk" to his old neighborhood. He encounters a woman who gives him a bunch of his dead parents' personal items and then discovers that the woman he thought was his mother was really his stepmother and his birth mother is still alive. He narrows the field down to three women, all of whom are in the Middle East. Meanwhile, The Joker has escaped from Arkham and is headed to the Middle East because he has stolen a nuclear missle and wants to sell it on the black market. Batman, naturally, follows. Eventually, Robin finds his mother only to discover that she is being blackmailed by The Joker and when all is said and done Robin dies. Then, The Joker becomes the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations (complete with cameo by the Ayatollah!) and tries to kill the entire General Assembly, but Superman and Batman save the day. The Joker, btw, is not captured but is presumed "dead" because his helicopter crashes into the East River (he would not return to comics for another two years).

It's no wonder they brought Jason Todd back from the dead, and I think that if the storyline hadn't been something out of a bad A-Team episode it might have still held water. But all that really remains is the "controversy" surrounding it.

Next up: To Kill a Mockingbird and Green Lantern

The Farewell Tour Begins

2009-06-26T08:44:00.002-04:00

Should I hold a press conference to announce my retirement from softball?

I was looking at the schedule yesterday and saw that I've got about five games left before the season is over and I've decided that for the most part this is going to be it. I've only been able to play on about half of the Thursdays we've been scheduled, and half of those have been rained out, so basically I've played in maybe four games this year. It's not that I don't enjoy playing ball or that I'm upset that we've only won 1 game this season, it's just that when trying to fit in a Thursday night game becomes this much of a hassle, you have to rethink it.

Last night's game was a heartbreaker. We took a very good team into extra innings--though we were winning going into the 7th and blew the lead in a very Mets-like fashion--and they scored two runs at the top of the 8th, which we could not get back. I had one of my more eventful games at first and hit a high bloop single into center and scored a run so I actually contributed. And while there's no "I" in team, I've been focused on my individual performance a lot lately because I platoon at first base so I only play so many innings, and since our offense doesn't light things up the way we did last spring, I only get 1, maybe 2 at-bats each game. Part of me wants to make it a goal of hitting a home run over the fence--something I have never done, ever--but I know that if I become really focused on that, I'll just pop up and ground things back to the pitcher and then I won't contribute at all.

So, a few more weeks and then I'll retire the #23 jersey unceremoniously ... unless I feel like playing for the Jets or Vikings (wrong sport, I know, but I had to make a Favre reference somewhere).

Humor, Heroes, and History (100 Books ... 58 Left)

2009-06-24T21:17:00.005-04:00

35. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry
36. The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan by Wendy McClure
37. Garfield Minus Garfield by Dan Walsh w/Jim Davis
38. Batman: Strange Apparitions by Steve Engelhart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin
39. Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Woflman and George Perez
40. The History of the DC Universe by Marv Wolfman and George Perez
41. Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Perez, and Kurt Schaffenberger
42. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

So I'm getting a little back on track here because if I'm going to be on pace I have to hit #50 by next Tuesday. Being 8 off the pace isn't too bad.

I posted on the Zinn book over at Stop Trying to Inspire Me, so check it out there.

As for the others, it's pretty much a smattering of different stuff, some of which I've read before. I've looked through the Richard Scarry book about 100 times with Brett but I finally got the time to sit down and read it to him before putting him down for a nap last week and it's really fun. We just got him another one of Scarry's books for his birthday and I'm sure he's going to have a lot of fun looking at the stuff in it.

The humor books are ones I've been pretty familiar with for a while because of their presence on the internet. McClure's book is on the infamous 1974 Weight Watchers recipe cards that she featured on her blog some years ago; Garfield Minus Garfield is a book version of the website where Garfield is removed from several strips and we see Jon in his lonely, sad world. And I have to say three things about that: a) it makes Garfield funny again; b) the fact that Jim Davis not only condoned this but did a few "minus" strips himself (in the book) is awesome; and c) my sister and I collected the fuck out of Garfield books when we were kids and it's awesome that this was a Christmas gift from her.

The comics are classics that I've read seemingly a million times. I highly recommend the Batman and the Superman books because you don't really need to know much about the characters to enjoy them. The Batman stories are from the late 1970s and are the type of quality stuff you've seen in the better movies. Tou've got some quality Joker stuff in there too and a great subplot involving Hugo Strange, Gotham's crime "boss" Rupert Thorne and a love interest of Bruce Wayne's, Silver, who figures out that he is Batman and it ultimately means that they can't be togther. The Superman story is the "last" Superman story, an imaginary story in which a reporter from the Daily Planet interviews Lois Lane 10 years after Superman's last battle versus all of his villains. It's one of those great "ride off into the sunset" type of stories you'd expect from a hero with a history like Superman's.

Crisis is a bear. If you have read any DC Comics you've heard of some of the elments of Crisis, especially in recent continuity. For the unitiated, the premise is this: there are multiple versions of Earth existing in multiple parallel universes, and when our story opens, the ruler of the anti-matter universe, the Anti-Monitor, is "eating" up universe after universe (the destruction is shown by a white wall of anti-matter sweeping across the worlds, literally erasing everything it touches). The only person with enough power to stop him is The Monitor, who recruits heroes to fight him.

Over the course of 12 issues there are momentous events like the deaths of The Flash and Supergirl and a complete realignment of DC's continuity. Honestly, it's one of those gargantuan epics that comic fans drool over; the difference between this one and some of the others is that this one is really tightly written and literally has a cast of thousands (seriously, issue #9? A team of super-villains led by Lex Luthor and Braniac take over three earths and the fight that ensues is right out of the old Super-Friends show). I reread it because I recently sold my individual issues plus several crossovers and tie-ins on eBay so I wanted to reread the collected hardcover version, which I am keeping. I highly recommend the trade paperback.

History ... is a companion to Crisis, and proceeds to tell the history of the universe now that it has been "rewritten" by the events of the series. It's a prose book with some beautiful illustrations by George Perez (my favorite comics artist of all time) and is impressive not just because it's great to look at but because Wolfman and Perez go into such depth, trying their best to mention just about every character in DC's collection.

Up next? More history, more comics, and mockingbirds.

Requiem for a Walkman

2009-06-23T10:57:00.004-04:00

My big birthday present this year was an iPod. I suppose this isn't anything significant to most people considering that the iPod has been the predominant portable music device for the better part of a decade and that very few people even buy CDs anymore. But for me it's a pretty big deal. You see, I still own a Walkman.

Granted, in recent years I have only used the Walkman when I was working out and my newest mix tape is something on the order of three or four years old, but with the acquisition of an iPod, I'm truly at the end of a very long era in my life. Since I was in elementary school, I've always had something to take with me that played music. My very first music device was an Emerson "tape recorder," the type that was a huge rectangle that took a full-sized cassette and that you'd often see on 1980s cop shows during interrogation scenes. I recorded a lot of stupid stuff on it and listened to a lot of those "read the story/hear the book" books (my favorite of which was one about Superman because it was a full-sized hardcover book and not some cheapo paperback, which is what I had for Return of the Jedi).

My first Walkman was one I commandeered from my parents. I'd place its origins in the mid-1980s, as it had the classic headphones that went over the head and two foam-covered speakers that went over the ears. This was the Walkman I took with me on school field trips and tuned people out with by listening to tapes I'd made by taping songs off of the radio, which is why you'd get a deejay talking over the first few seconds of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" or why there was static during the bridge of INXS's "Devil Inside." Sadly, this is something the current generation will not have the pleasure of dealing with.

In the years since I had several Walkmen, not all of them technically of the "Walkman" brand, and all of them had different features and suffered various fates. There was the one with equalizers on the face and a digital display that a family friend accidentally dropped in the Great South Bay one summer afternoon; there was the one I chucked across the room when I was fifteen, pissed off about ... well, something; there were ones with bass boost, hold buttons, AM/FM transmitters, carrying cases, and ear buds. There were also the quirks that each machine had -- a tendency to sometimes play tapes too slow or eat them; a crackling sound when the earphone jack became aged; or, how, when my current Walkman would switch sides on the tape, one of the speakers would cut out and I would have to take the tape out, flip it over, and press play again.

It seemed that as the cassette tape became more and more obsolete, the manufacturers did what they could to make the Walkman appealing. I'm not surprised that the Walkman held out pretty well against the Discman, considering that early models of the Discman were notorious for breaking easily or couldn't handle actually being carried--my sister was always combatting with CD skipping. But when the iPod with its colorful commercials set to "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" began to take hold, that was the final nail in the coffin.

Still, I held out for a while. Partly because I didn't have a computer that had the capacity for maximum iPod-ness and partly because the Walkman--more importantly, the tapes it played--was a pretty important figure in my life and I wasn't just ready to throw away that particular velveteen rabbit. I still have three shoeboxes full of tapes that I've got to decide what to do with. Some are albums that I have yet to replace with CDs, mostly 1980s-era Queen and a few things, like the soundtrack to The Big Chill, that were pilfered from my parents when I was back in high school (I did let my dad keep his collection of Kenny Rogers tapes as well as Exile's Greatest Hits); most of them are mix tapes, which provided some sort of unofficial soundtrack to my adolesence. I don't think that my trip to Europe when I was 17 would have been half as fun without a steady diet of Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane's Addiction, and Metallica (in fact, I think I wound up giving one of my Metallica tapes to a girl); walks home from high school would have been way more boring without Billy Joel.

And I've already written quite a bit about about college room soundtracks and mixtapes for girlfriends.

The Walkman isn't in the trash just yet -- it's sitting in one of the trays of our treadmill -- but I've already gone full-tilt into the iPod, making playlists, buying songs, and listening to a few podcasts while I clean and do some work here and there (btw, I totally understand why my students want to listen to them instead of me in class ... though I wish they had better taste in music than T.I.). The tapes are still in the closet and while I will definitely purge them, I think I might take a look at what's actually on those tapes and maybe transfer some of that stuff to CD (or buy the songs). The machine will probably meet its demise soon after. So in a way, this is "farewell, my lovely," though I'm sure you'll have a legacy.

Whaddaya want, a medal?

2009-06-21T07:53:00.004-04:00

So it's Father's Day again. I've already done my requisite perusal of everyone's daddy issues shit over on PostSecret and in the last week and a half I've seen about a hundred commercial about "dad" and how "dad" wants you to go to Home Depot and Lowe's and buy him some sort of massive power tool or a Dodge dealer and buy a pickup truck even though: a) he would probably cut his foot off if he actually used that saw, and b) Chrysler is bankrupt.

I'd say that dads don't get a fair shake in the grand scheme of parenting holidays, commercials, etc. ... but that's complete bullshit because there are just as many annoying "mom" commercials and other images out there, plus moms have to overcome the image of Kate Gosselin and her reverse mullet (seriously, what the fuck is up with that thing and why are women actually copying it? Amanda has related to me at least a few stories of how a hairdresser talked a woman out of getting "the Kate." Good for those hairdressers because "the Kate" looks like some of the late 1980s "skate-rad" [seriously, this is what how they referred to themselves] cuts that guys were getting when I was in the sixth grade). I mean, she makes Joan Crawford look like Queen Hippolyta, so we definitely don't have it easy.

I did find a funny piece over on Babble, "Daddy Doesn't Babysit," in which the writer wonders why people feel the need to comment on how much of an achievement it is when dad has the kids and is *gasp* capabale of taking care of them ...

Calling my husband a babysitter is insulting. He doesn't get paid. He doesn't spend time with our daughter because he's required to or because it's going to get him something (money, sex, whatever). He spends time with our daughter because he is her father, and he kinda, sorta, really likes her. Isn't that why men become fathers? Because they want children?
The comments from women on a recent Strollerderby post about the Daddy-babysitting issue poured in. One woman recounted the story of a kindly seatmate tapping her on the shoulder on a plane to tell her how "lucky" she was because her husband helped give their child a bottle. "Clearly, he deserves a nomination for Man of the Year, because those are the little woman's jobs, and any man who does them
is worthy of a ticker-tape parade," she said.

I never understood why it seems like it's some sort of feat to actually be a parent when you're a father. It's kind of what you're supposed to do, right? I do find it funny when I come across that sentiment; for instance, about a month ago, I was flying solo for the better part of a week because Amanda was away on business and a friend made of those "can you handle this" comments (I think the phrase "Mr. Mom" was in there at some point). Since I've done this a number of times already, my response was like, "Uh ... all right, I guess." I mean, Brett had a little too much tequila, but doesn't that happen to everyone?

Look, real men aren't looking for some sort of praise or recognition. Men who insist on being recognized for simply doing parental duties are douchebags. If anything, real men want what every parent wants from their kids: more time to sleep.

Because my 200th post HAD to be about poop.

2009-06-14T21:15:00.002-04:00

INT BATHROOM AFTER BATH

[BRETT lays on towel while TOM dries him off. TOM reaches for diaper]

BRETT

Go potty.

TOM

You have to go potty?

BRETT

Go potty.

TOM

Okay, get up and go sit on your potty.

[TOM helps him up. BRETT walks over to the frog-shaped potty and sits down. TOM sits on closed toilet, facing him. Minutes pass during which BRETT plays with the monkeys and buttons on his new shower curtain. TOM looks down at potty.]

TOM

Wow!

AMANDA (from other room)

Did he pee?

TOM

No, he pooped!

[Lest we get any more graphic than that about such a monumental event ... fade out]

Mud and Psychosis

2009-06-05T13:57:00.002-04:00

Before I left for softball last night, my status on Facebook read something about how I was convinced there was a cosmic conspiracy against me and my softball season. We've had several games rescheduled this season due to rain, and it was raining again. However, the parks and rec rain line hadn't been updated since 4:10 and it kept telling me that "all fields are playable," so I drove to Darden Towe Park ready to play (and ready to be annoyed when I got there to discover the game had, in fact, been called).

Believe it or not, we played. And got spanked. It was a sloppy, rain-soaked game that started bad and got worse as the rain kept coming down and the field got more and more muddy. I went 1 for 2 with a double and a fly out (which was the best ball I'd hit all season--unfortunatley it was right to the center fielder). The double would have been a triple if the infield was dry, but I play in sneakers instead of cleats so I barely made it to second standing up and almost tripped several times on the way into the really muddy dugout.

Someone did make a comment about how I was playing in sneakers and how I should be careful, and I agree that I was definitely running the risk of pulling a muscle or falling flat on my face, but it reminded me of all the times in my life where I've played pickup games with very little protective equipment and came out, surprisingly, with little more than maybe a scrape.

I mean, that's what you do when you're a boy. You play touch football in the mud and snow, not thinking twice about shoving people into the ground or a fence; you wrestle in the family room, using the arm of the couch as "the top ropes" for your flying elbow; you ride your BMX bike without a helmet, standing on the seat while going down a hill. Or, in my case, you play rec league softball without cleats. I'd get a pair but I don't for the same reason that I am still using the same baseball glove I've had since the 10th grade--I don't want to spend any more money than I really need to. Partly because I think that once I purchase something like a bat or new glove or cleats I'll wind up having to quit in some way or another and I won't get my money's worth, and partly because I'm cheap.

Although the comment the guy on the opposing team had made me think of when I used to play street hockey as a teenager. I was always goalie and when I played, I usually played using a minimum of protective equipment--gloves, a helmet, and leg pads. And there would always be one guy who seemed "concerned" that I wasn't protected enough. Not in the way the guy last night was, but in a "I'm so good that I'm going to kill you" sort of way. I remember one time hearing some guy saying that one of his slapshots might break my collarbone. I told him not to worry about it, especially since he was some fat-assed 25-year-old with a curly mullet that at the time only classic rock deejays and holdovers from REO Speedwagon cover bands wore. Playing, by the way, with a group of teenagers. Picture Wooderson but way more pathetic.

That's kind of why I stopped playing hockey--after college it seemed that my strapping on the pads would make me that guy. Softball is kind of the same thing but I feel at least a little protected by my minimum financial commitment and the fact that I'm not playing with teenagers. So there's another game Sunday and hopefully I'll get more than just a couple of at-bats and we can actually turn our season around.

That is, if I don't fall on my ass in the mud first.

Canadians have issues (100 Books ... 66 Left)

2009-05-30T07:53:00.004-04:00

29. Degrassi Talks: Abuse
30. Degrassi Talks: Alcohol
31. Degrassi Talks: Depression
32. Degrassi Talks: Drugs
33. Degrassi Talks: Sex
34. Degrassi Talks: Sexuality

I've had these books on my shelf for a while, having puchrased them years ago in a Degrassi-related memorabilia binge. I recently sold them on eBay, so before I shipped them off I read them again. I wrote a decent-sized post over on my other blog, which you can read here.

Next up in the books, some humor and some history.

Angels & Demons, Sedaris & Silverstein (100 Books ... 72 Left)

2009-05-24T21:02:00.002-04:00

26. Naked by David Sedaris
27. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
28. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

You ever find yourself forgetting how good an author can be? This basically happened with each of these three books as I read them during the last week or two (or in the case of Angels & Demons, this weekend). I'd read other books by each of these men but it had been a long time since, so as I was reading them I found myself pleasantly reminded of why I had bought them in the first place.

I'll start with Dan Brown's novel, since I finished it about 30 minutes ago. I'd read The Da Vinci Code in 2003 right around the time everyone else was reading it. I didn't find that it shook my faith to its core or anything--then again, come on ... when the fuck do step foot in a church--but I found it entertaining right up until then end when Brown's big "twist" as to the villain of the story came right from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It also seemed too obvious and that ticked me off. With the Angels & Demons movie coming out and knowing that though it clocked in at about 550 pages, it would be a quick read, I picked it up on Friday. Brown does know how to weave a good mystery and paces his story well because it is pretty hard to put down. And the plot holds up even through the end, even if it's a little over the top at times.

Silverstein's A Light in the Attic was something I had read before, but when I was a kid. It's been sitting in Brett's room for a while and he kept asking me to read the book about the "boy", so at bedtime I would read a few poems. He usually dozed off about halfway through reading it, but I'd carry on. I remember that there were quite a few kids in elementary school who absolutely loved Silverstein's poetry and discovering why when I picked up both this and Where the Sidewalk Ends (I admit that I didn't read The Giving Tree until I bought it for Amanda to read to Brett). Even now there's something weird and ... intelligent about it? I don't know how to describe it, except that I know that I remember feeling that this poetry was fun and silly yet somewhat smart and cool when I was a kid; reading it now, I feel the same way. Unlike so many children's books out there, he seems to put a lot of faith in the intelligence of kids, like they will see a poem about a girl dying because she doesn't get a horse and find it funny and not horriffic.

As for Naked, it's the third Sedaris book I've written (Dress Your Family ... and Me Talk Pretty ... are the other two). David Sedaris makes me want to be a better writer. It's very rare that someone can take real people and events and "create" something out of them. The members of his family are vivid and his description of some of the events in his life are very "holy shit, wait ... what?" I particularly like "Ashes," the second-to-last essay which centers around his dying mother at his sister's wedding. It's poignant without getting schmaltzy.

Next up: Degrassi.

The Neverending Search for the Meaning of Life

2009-05-16T22:00:00.000-04:00

So, this is my third attempt at writing a post about what it feels like to have officially been out of college for ten whole years (well, as of Friday anyway ... I started and stopped and started and stopped and therefore went "past deadline" on this). And I have to say that at this point, it's more obligatory than anything, like since I'm the type of person who writes about a lot of things, I have to write about this.

The reason it's taken me three tries to write anything is because I'm not exactly sure what to say. I thought of taking the "emo" approach or getting all overanalytical about it, but I already did that way back when I got my first reunion invite/notice in the mail.

Then, I read this hilarious post on Deadspin (caution: NSFW) and thought of doing something similar to it, but all I could think of was to quote the Deadspin post on my other blog and post this video:

The Replacements - New Music - More Music Videos

Another thought, which I had in the shower this morning after Brett woke me up before the morning news had even started (seriously, dude ... do you have a thing for Liz Nagy or do you like that weather guy looks like a Hobbit and is therefore just your height, or do you really care what is going on with all of the high school baseball action in Staunton? There's no other reason you're waking me up before 7:00 on a Saturday), was to take the old approach of my now deacade-old column in The Greyhound, "From the Nosebleeds," which would mean picking something trivial and spinning it so that it actually means something, a schtick of mine that actually started with an essay in my freshman year Creative Eye class.

That essay, which is where I get the title of this post, was 10 pages (double-spaced) and was some all-you-can-eat buffet of nonsense about how I was in love, how I slept at odd hours, and how nougat was the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe. It had gems like:

With five freshmen crammed into a two room suite, the discovery of new and interesting things is almost a requirement. Hence, I have discovered a fifth food group--the Frito Lay group. My four roommates and I have consumed various forms of what nutrition gurus enjoy calling junk food, turning every evening into a spectacle of Mountain Dew, Chee-tos, Doritos, pizza, and assorted candy bars. Nutrition and health have been forsaken for a bachelor’s life, although I wonder why junk food and slovenliness are the center of a bachelor’s life. Is there some unwritten eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt consume mass quantities of carbonated beverage”?

But honestly, a few months into college everyone's life changes and looking back on some of the crap I wrote as a rather obnoxious and immature freshman (yes, I know that's redundant), I'm amazed I was even tolerated by my fellow writing students. Seriously, the shit is insufferable. And while the inane crap I wrote as a senior is better, I kinda wanted to throw in the towel and say, "Dude, it was just college."

Then I had an awesome day. Amanda wound up being woken up by Brett screaming that he wanted to hold his blankie while he ate his breakfast, which I had refused (I KNOW! someone call Social Services), but this allowed us to get out early and go to the Charlottesville farmer's market and then eat breakfast at The Nook, one of my favorite downtown restaurants. I haven't been to the farmer's market many times but I really like it whenever I go. We picked up some wheat bread, leeks, chives, and a package of hamburgers from grass-fed cows. Plus, Brett got to look and wave at people, including a former student of mine who now attends UVa. (and thus my transformation into my father continues).

Pile on some yummy omelets, a stroll on the mall and Brett taking a nice, long nap (rare for a weekend) while I managed to wipe our long-suffering patio furniture with some teak oil. We spent the rest of the day playing with Brett and hanging out, he got to go on another shopping trip when I needed to run to Harris Teeter for some hamburger buns (and got to see a current student of mine). Then we had those burgers (seriously ... so yum) and wound down. Brett went to bed sans binky for the third night in a row and Amanda and I had coffee with stroopwafels (more yum) and have had the TV off for a while. She's been playing DS, I've been reading David Sedaris and writing this entry.

It sounds, quite possibly, like the most ordinary day in the world. And it is. But what makes it awesome is that first, we didn't have to go anywhere this weekend (first in a long time); and second, I just really enjoyed it. No, it wasn't a beer-soaked Dionysian orgy complete with a panty raid to distract the Pis while Lamar and Wormser installed cameras throughout their house ... but nothing in the four years I spent at Loyola was that, either.

And so I sat down to write and just wanted to revel in this really fun day that we had and it made me realize that looking back and emoting that I'm getting old or that I didn't do enough or whatever comes with that particular existential crisis (a term I'm not sure I'm using correctly. Boothby got to existentialism and I was like, "huh?") is pretty overrated, especially when you spend your time with those who are more important to you than anything else.

Besides, it was just college, dude.

and your old '55 that you jump in the roof of

2009-05-11T17:24:00.002-04:00

I cannot get this song out of my head today ...

So for once I like a band that has something out within the last decade. Go me!!!

Even if my car isn't an old '55 but a 1998 that is being held hostage by Merchants Tire. Hopefully I'll be getting it back tomorrow because while my co-workers have been great about picking me up and giving me rides, I always to put people out like that.

This week should be one of getting back to routine, though. I think the craziest thing going on at work is getting grades in and the craziest thing going on at home is being able to clean up a little more now that we're both home all week and will be home this coming weekend.

So ... sigh ... time to try and relax and write and read and all of those things that I keep meaning to do.

The Living Dead and Reluctant Grown-Ups (100 Books ... 75 Left)

2009-05-08T10:06:00.002-04:00

24. World War Z by Max Brooks
25. The Day I Turned Uncool: Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-Up by Dan Zevin

I probably should have reached the quarter mark about five weeks ago, but as like everything with teachers, I fell behind pretty quickly. I'm not going to offer too many excuses except that things do tend to get in the way. Thankfully, I've got plenty of "quick reads" to get myself back on track as I also continue along with some "slow reads" that will be pretty rewarding when I actually finish.

Anyway, onto the books.

I mentioned World War Z in my last book post because I'd read The Zombie Survival Guide. So my intention this time was to reread it after having read the first book. The great thing is that World War Z still stands completely on its own, although small details (like the nature of the virus and some of the things that people do to survive) are really enhanced if you've read the survival guide. And put simply, the book is amazing. Brooks takes us through a global war and rarely misses a detail. Not only that, there's so much great satire in here--celebrities, politics, American can-do "gung-ho" attitude--that you really feel that you're reading about something that actually happened. In fact, there are few times where, if you suspend disbelief enough, you start to wonder how you would survive a zombie outbreak and what would happen to your loved ones. It gives you chills, even though the dead rising is highly unlikely.

The Day I Turned Uncool is much lighter fare. Dan Zevin's a humorist writing about how he started to realize as he went through his thirties that he ... well, wasn't a party-animal college kid anymore. Each chapter addresses a realization about what he likes to do in life that seemed so lame to him when he was 10 years younger. He's Bill Simmons without the name-dropping and douche baggage that Simmons tends to lay on his readers. I had read this when it first came out a few years ago and chuckled, but now that I'm actually in my thirties, I laughed out loud at a few passages, particularly the chapter on his trip to Spain which he contrasts with his "journal" from a semester abroad in Denmark when he was in college.

Up next? Well, I'm still working on A People's History of the United States and I might grab a quick read or two to take with me for the weekend.

Platinum, Baby

2009-05-06T22:32:00.002-04:00

So I went to Hallmark to get Mother's Day cards and when I went to the counter, I whipped out my trusty Hallmark rewards club card. When I signed the receipt, it said "member level: platinum. Congrats on platinum." I put the receipt in my wallet and actually felt a little proud.

Seriously ... not only do I have a Hallmark rewards card but I am a platinum-level member.

And my stock in the Pantheon of Nerd continues to go up.

Other things that happened lately that are just as dork-tastic ...

I saved $9.00 on a grocery order at Harris Teeter by using my VIC card and was really psyched about it.
Watching the most recent episode of The Biggest Loser, I commented on how Mike and Ron's kitchen counters were exactly the same as the backsplash and this was annoying.
I asked my 7th period English class if they could come up with an honest reason as to why John Travolta and company are dancing around with Saran Wrap in the "Greased Lightning" number.
I rocked out to "Don't Stop Believin'" on my way to work on Monday morning.
I had no probelm showing up four hours early for a flight out of BWI because I didn't want to get stuck in D.C.-Baltimore traffic.
I really like the remix at the end of the "Greetings" episode of Yo Gabba Gabba!
I recognized a song from the American Pie soundtrack when my 15-year-old cousin quoted it in her Facebook status.

Top that.

In-flight entertainment

2009-04-28T13:11:00.003-04:00

Between having four hours to kill at BWI this morning and my one-hour flight into Islip, I had a lot of time to remember why I actually enjoy going to the airport and flying even if I don't do it very often. There are just so many things that you end up observing when you're in a situation like that, even if you spend most of your time with your nose buried in a book, minding your own business.

Some of my favorites from this morning are the woman who decided to hold up the security line because she needed to get all of her things and reassemble herself the second they came out of the scanner, rather than walking to the end of the conveyer belt; the holier-than-thou douchebag who was talking about the IMF and politics and what college was like to his high-school-senior douchebag brother who seemed annoyed that he got into Georgetown but was wait-listed at William & Mary and probably wasn't listening to what his brother was talking about and was thinking about all of the keg stands he was going to do and chicks he was going to plow next year (although I might be wrong. But the kid was wearing a backwards Yankees cap, and the J.Crew uniform of a collared shirt with shorts and sneakers with no socks. Plus, he was getting the flesh-colored beard thing. Considering I went to college with about 2,000 of these asswipes, I say I have good judgment here); and whomever on the plane had very bad gas and cut one in line for boarding and several times in-flight.

Not that it wasn't a lovely experience or anything. It's just hard not to notice sometimes.

Whup whup whup whup ...

2009-04-21T22:01:00.004-04:00

"You were such a helicopter parent today."

One of the funny things I've discovered as Brett's gotten older and used to playing around other kids is that it's hard for me to let go of my instinct to protect him, especially when all of the kids are older. On Saturday, we went to a friend's daughter's third birthday party at The Little Gym. Brett was one of a few kids under two years old, so it was easy for him to be knocked down when he was doing things like running around on a huge mat or climbing on gymnastics equipment. While he was doing all of that, I was only a few feet behind him.

Nothing bad happened, of course. In fact, Brett had a really fun time. He couldn't play all of the games that were being run, but he was climbing all over the place, throwing balls, and running around. He tired himself out to the point where, magically, he sat politely at the table and ate cake and ice cream neatly ... and without a bib (because while I was watching him very closely during playtime, I forgot to put one on him when it was time to eat. Genius move, that).

I dunno, I guess that because he seems to be growing up so fast and doing so many new, cool things, that I forget that he's still basically a little guy. I'm reminded in moments like that, when he's the smallest one around and doesn't know how to play the same way the big kids do because playtime for him is wandering around the playground at daycare or running up and down the hall or showing me leaves and pine cones in the front yard. I swear I'm not going to be like this his whole life, though.

Marriage, War, Zombies, Chaos, Sports, and the Like (100 Books ... 77 left)

2009-04-16T22:06:00.005-04:00

17. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
18. In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
19. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
20. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
21. The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
22. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
23. God Save the Fan by Will Leitch

Yeah, I am kind of slow to go on this. But I am kind of like that with reading--I read a few books all at once and then I don't read much outside of the Internet and magazines for the better part of a couple of months. At least being an English teacher helps; three of these (Doll's House, All Quiet, and Flies) I read because I am teaching them this year. And while you might say that since A Doll's House isn't a book but is a play, it doesn't count, I think it does because it's a full-length play and my sophomores and I studied it like we would have any other book.

I was actually pretty impressed with how Ibsen worked in my 10th grade English, and I just started teaching Flies to my seniors and All Quiet to my sophomores, so I'll see how that goes. Looking at that list, there's a lot of "boy" type of stuff on there. Watchmen's a comic book, All Quiet is about war, and Zombie is ... well, dude, it's Zombies (I have, btw, already read World War Z and I'm going to reread it next). I'm actually not usually like that. A lot of the stuff I've read is not necessarily "boy" type of stuff. Sure, I read a lot of books by men but I've read my fair share of women authors as well as books with female protagonists.

Aaaaaaaaaaanyway, out of those, the one book that had the most effect on me is clearly All Quiet on the Western Front. I always make a point to read or reread what my students are reading and this book was no exception. It also depressed the hell out of me in parts, especially the ending. It's one of the first books in a while that I've had to read in a quiet environment (in other words, no television on) and had to put down every once in a while because it was just that powerful.

Tim O'Brien's book is excellent. It's one of his first books that isn't completely about the Vietnam War. Yes, the plot ties into the war and is the story of a veteran but it is not as embedded in the war as The Things They Carried (one of my favorite books of all time). It's the story of a Senatorial candidate whose wife mysteriously goes missing shortly after his career has been ruined by secrets dug up by his opponents. O'Brien's narrator--a journalist trying to get to the bottom of the story--is detached enough and enters the story at just the right places, and he really has a knack for good imagery.

Also, Will Leitch's God Save the Fan is well worth the money. I've been reading his stuff since his days at The Black Table ("Life as a Loser" got me through so many boring days at the office). Yes, it's about sports but it is one of the best criticisms of ESPN I've ever read.

And pick up Watchmen. Now.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T22:00:00.002-04:00

A Brief Post About American Idol

2009-04-10T08:24:00.004-04:00

So yes, I'm still watching American Idol and I haven't gotten to the point where I skip about five weeks because somebody in the competition is just so annoying (like David Archuletta [sic] last season) or everything is so incredibly boring (like ... well, too many seasons to count) that the show becomes unwatchable. And the TWoP recaps make the show worth watching so I don't think I'll be giving it up anytime soon.

BUT ... Adam Lambert needs to go, even if he probably will win the competition because 13-year-old girls love it when the love child of Robert Smith and Pete Wentz via High School Musical pisses all over Johnny Cash.

This could be good because it means that the emo poseur character might finally be over, and to be honest it's not like he'll hang around for years and years. He'll put out some shitty album and go join the cast of a revival of Starlight Express and we'll never hear from him again.

Until then, every time I watch him on stage I'll think of this:

Conquering Sweden

2009-04-09T22:13:00.006-04:00

I am sure that I'm not the first person to blog about going to Ikea and I'm sure I'm not going to be the last. But I don't know, there's something about going to that place, buying some furniture and then spending the better part of six hours over two days putting it together that makes me want to write about it.

Besides, what else am I going to write about from my spring break? Getting our cars inspected? Reading all of Lord of the Flies (well, that's for a long-overdue book post ...)? The grilled turkey and cheese sandwich I made for lunch today?

We went to the Ikea in Woodbridge last Saturday in search of bedroom furniture. At the time, what constituted our clothing storage were a dresser and an armoire that had followed us from not only Arlington but our childhood bedrooms (and in my case, before that, my parents' bedroom, as I had their old furniture). It was time for a change, and while I know this makes me sound like a bigger dork than I already am, I kind of get a kick out of going to Ikea. Everything's just so weirdly named and relatively inexpensive. I'd say that it made me "feel" Swedish but my old roommate Fredrik taught me that being Swedish apparently means sleeping until 4:00, and drinking High Life.

Anyway ... we picked out a long, eight-drawer dresser and a tall, six-drawer dresser. We also had a headboard/footboard in our hands but put it back because we weren't totally committed to it. Plus, by the time we got around to retrieving the furniture from the "self-serve" area of the store we were trying to figure out how much we could actually haul to Amanda's parents' house and then back down to Charlottesville. A decision, by the way, made while smelling the sweet scent of Ikea cinnamon buns mixed with the aroma of particle board.

The problem was that while Amanda does drive an SUV, it's a RAV-4 and not some Obnoxpedition or anything like that. Plus, with a car seat and a stroller (which, in retrospect, we could have left at the in-laws), we had less room to work with than usual. Each dresser had two boxes and getting all four to fit involved uninstalling the car seat to maximize the cargo space and moving the passenger's seat up so far that when Amanda sat down her stomach became an extension of the glove compartment. Thankfully, there was no traffic on I-95 and her parents offered to drive her and Brett home while I drove the furniture.

Of course, getting the furniture home was the first--and probably easiest--part because I did not inherit my father's ability with tools. Or his eye for interior design, but that's another topic for another day. Thankfully, putting together both pieces of furniture only took 42 easy steps apiece and most of it was tedious instead of difficult (seriously, 14 drawers all assembled the same way ... are we done yet?). As I was putting everything together, though, I did realize that there have to be some universal truths to Ikea furniture assembly:

The Alan wrench is the most unwieldy tool ever made and during the process of assembling your furniture you will drop it at least 32 times.
You will strip at least one screw with your Phillips head screwdriver. That screw will be in crooked and remain crooked.
You will initially install one board or beam backwards or upside down, adding at least five or ten minutes to the entire process while you correct it.
As always, the back of the dresser requires that you hammer on a large piece of what looks like cardboard using wire brads. You will bend at least three of these brads and have to throw them out, drop two on the floor and spend ten minutes poring over the carpet with a flashlight before realizing that they landed on the nightstand, and will nick the back of your furniture at least once when you miss the brad with your hammer.
As careful as you are, you will draw blood (in my case, I took out a small chunk of my thumb with a flat-head screwdriver).
Getting drawers on track requires at least two attempts.
The furniture will wind up looking bigger than you remember it being in the showroom, but it will definitely make your clothing storage more efficient.

I'm pleased with what we've got and am even more pleased that the Salvation Army is coming to pick up the armoire on Monday (the old dresser will relocate to the guest room/office and hold DVDs and CDs). They definitely brighten up the room and make it look like we're coordinated. Plus, for once in my life my Montauk Point Lighthouse print matches something. Which is nice.

As for a headboard and nightstands? We're definitely looking into those ... but with this out of the way we feel like the hard part's done.

MINE!MINE!MINE!MINE!MINE!MINE! (or, Wasn't I Supposed to Get Four More Months?)

2009-03-31T21:11:00.002-04:00

I think it's started.

Recently, Brett's been very possessive of just about anything he has a hold of and will hang on it for dear life, saying "My _____" whenever you try to get it from him. This could be a toy or a piece of garbage, it doesn't matter. Try to take it away and you're trying to kill his puppy or something.

Not that I didn't know this would happen. After all, they have a name for it: "The Terrible Twos" (a name, which, btw, I hate because it brings to mind sing-songy patronizing "Oh, someone's in the Terrible Twos!" and other statements from people who are not involved in the day-to-day of your life). And so far it's been confined to "Mine!", aggressive play (though that's also due to his cutting some more teeth), and getting upset when you're not doing what he wants (i.e., when I tried to pick him up when we were downtown this afternoon and he went "No no no," which meant that he wanted to walk with me holding his hand).

I'm not going to get too upset over any of it, to be honest because the boy's going to want to test his boundaries and honestly discover how the world works around him. If he does this shit at 16, I'm throwing him through a window, though.

For the most part, it's been a relatively uneventful life as of late. I finished the yearbook and have spring break in a few days; Amanda was in Nashville over the weekend and will be spending a few days in Chicago at the end of the month. My week off will be filled with the wonder of yard work, cleaning the basement, giving blood, buying chalk, getting the cars inspected, and lesson planning. Huzzah!

Don't You Forget About Me

2009-03-24T15:58:00.002-04:00

Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. 60062.
Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did WAS wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us...in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed.

So if my calculations are correct, if The Breakfast Club were real it would have taken place 25 years ago today. I'd lament how long ago that is, but to be honest, I'm still psyched that I can pop it in the DVD player and remember why it's my favorite movie of all time. Besides, even though I'm 31 and not 15 or 16 or whatever my age was when I first saw it (on WPIX with all of the cursing badly overdubbed), I still see things in it and can look at it from different perspectives (for instance, my "Sympathy for Mr. Vernon" post on my other blog). In fact, the only thing that looks "old" in that movie now is Judd Nelson. Then again, he was well into his twenties when he made that. Then, he went and made St. Elmo's Fire. I mean, this guy went from "NO DAD, WHAT ABOUT YOU?!" to "NO SPRINGSTEEN IS LEAVING THIS HOUSE!" in, like, six months. Totally awesome.

But I digress. Here is the trailer for the film. Watch, and then go and watch the movie ...