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Eleven (That's Ridiculous)

Max is eleven years old today. Right now. Step back and experience the elevenness.

At eleven, he's old enough to get the above reference. His big eleven-year-old plans for this morning? He's requested grits for breakfast and he got up and snuck downstairs to watch Looney Tunes before anyone else got up. After the rest of our household rises, we're packing up and driving to North Carolina today to see two of Max's favorite people, Carissa and Eric, get married tomorrow. We'll be hanging in the Autumnal mountain air with friends, having cake and presents and then he gets a week off from school courtesy the Fall Break we didn't have when I was eleven. Or twelve. Or ever.

Because his birthday's getting kind of eaten by this other thing, we're also doing cake and stuff next weekend, and little stuff maybe next week - it'll be a Birthday Celepaloozastravaganza.

Max's room is such a reflection of his personality at this point that I actually wrote an essay about it for a class this semester. It's like his mind exploded in there. He's sticking with his percussion well, making new friends at his new school and will be teaching origami to Abby's Girl Scout Troop next month. His book tastes have started to develop past the point where he needs suggestions, and his various projects have completely conquered his living space.

His favorite TV show right now is Gravity Falls, and when the assignments from his band teacher ran to the boring, he taught himself the theme song from the show on the bells. His favorite superhero is still Green Lantern, but he's more about the whole gamut of the various Corps and the mythology of their universe than any one particular Lantern. He's having a Lego renaissance right now, having not touched them for a while, and tends to "improve" the suggested projects as he does them. He often listens to college radio in his room, but also enjoys (lately) the Orb, ska, They Might be Giants and Nirvana. He loves his dog and wishes she obeyed him more, and has been trying with his bow and Nerf guns to become a better shot.

He's kind and considerate and curious and sensitive, this last often to the point where he loses patience with me when I'm not tolerant enough of others. You can see how this might happen. He's fully his own person, which is what every parent hopes for, and I love him completely and wish him the happiest of birthdays.

Sleepless & Bragging

I have noticed a trend lately, and I seek to get out in front and distance myself from it, since I am running for political office and all.

Apparently there is a great heaving swell of animosity towards those who don't sleep as much and who brag about it. Examples can be seen here at Diesel Sweeties and Cracked.com. These are both funny to me, but as someone who doesn't rest as well as perhaps most of the rest of you, and also as someone who has spoken about it on many occasions, I may have some additional light to shed on the situation. Because that's who I am, you see - a light-bringer, torch in hand, shining understanding down on everyone like a golden shower of bright truth.

I will not contest that sometimes, a sleep deprived person is in your face, bragging about it. This can be annoying (especially if you yourself have not slept - then you want to kill them five times with habanero bullets) and seemingly pointless. I would point out, however, that all bragging is annoying and seemingly pointless, from the new skirt to the marathon runner, from the saved zealot to the pop rapper - bragging just wears people out. Usually this occurs for one of two reasons - either the bragged at person simply has no shits to give or they're jealous, deep down and truly, wishing they could also get by on less sleep, making them guilty of two deadly sins at once, Grumpy and Sleepy. It's like when people brag about running marathons - it makes me jealous, a little. I wish that I, too could brag about running marathons, but that would be lying since I'm never running a fucking marathon.

Like marathon runners, a sleep-deprived person may also simply be telling you what's happening because they cannot believe it themselves, possibly for many of the same brain-starved reasons. "Hey, I'm only functioning on three hours sleep, giant Spanish banana. Can you believe it?" Yes, yes he can. Have a nap before your reality breaks.

The last explanation for this "bragging" palaver I can relate from experience is simple disclosure, done so that the other members of the sleep-deprived person's shared experiential reality group can brace themselves for strangeness or outright deficits of behavior. I'm not saying that sleep-dep excuses kicking the Alderman, but it can explain it, also the inability to do math, articulate simple sentiments, avoid violence, drinking all the coffee, grumpiness, and protracted blog entries defending one's own mostly indefensible behavior. It also might be practical to share the information; if I think my driving's going to be affected by my lack of sleep, I might share that with you as a passenger. Wouldn't you rather make educated decisions based on real data, freely given?

In closing, you may be annoyed by the sleep-deprived and wish that they would shut the hell up and get some Zs. Remember though, many of them have poor judgment and hot beverages, and you may not escape from your encounters without a coffee bath if you don't tread lightly. Just shine a green light at them and sing softly, and maybe they'll drift off and make the world a better place for everyone.

The Amazing Echometer

(This was the speech I had to give to my public speaking class today. Public speaking is a gen/ed requirement, and today's assignment was "sell something using Monroe's Motivated Sequence.")

(Holds up 4x6 index card with an infinitesimally small, unreadable word on it) Can you read this? Of course you can't, because you have a visual impairment, just like me and millions of other Americans. Night or day, rain or shine, reading, birdwatching, vigilante archery or taking in an outdoor sporting event; everybody sometimes needs some visual assistance!

Well, if you're like me - and I think we've established that you are - then you know that the worst thing about having glasses is losing glasses because you have to find them just to find them and that's impossible without a time machine - but we've got people working on that (points at girl giving a time machine speech later). What I'm really saying, like a lot of you at this point is: There's got to be a better way!

Now, I have the answer to your problem, the solution to your question, the magic elixir of synergy that's going to help you find all of the missing glasses that plague your life! Step right up and take a look and listen at the Amazing Echometer®! This astonishing device, invisible to the naked eye, attaches anywhere on your glasses frames and it's ready to go! Based on the echolocation solution provided to us by Mother Nature and exhibited by the furry and friendly vampire bat, the Amazing Echometer® sounds off when you do!

The moment you lose your glasses, simply sing out - HEY! - (Joshua in the back makes 'PING' sound with his laptop) and the Echometer® will answer back using patented EchoTronic® technology that identifies, triangulates and locates your lost glasses - it can't fail! Don't want to yell? Echometer® can be keyed to respond to embarrassed grunts and muttered profanity, common sounds made when glasses are lost. Don't like the noise it makes? Celebrity voices and top 40 hits will be available in the Spring of 2013.

Look, I know how you are now; blindly stumbling about like Frankenstein using Braille, hoping against hope not to crush your glasses into powder. With Echometer®, there's no more crawling around on the rug like a dog on all fours, no running red lights in front of Johnny Law, and no more contributing to Dr. Spectacles yacht fund buying new glasses! You'll be standing around - master of all you survey with your perfect vision - wondering how you ever lived without it!

So - how can you start your new life and bright future today? Call 1-989-ECHOMETER, or www.echometer.com - we have people standing by; don't waste another minute on scams or scrambling - order the Amazing Echometer® today! 

How To Speak with People

I have awakened the last two mornings from dreams about stealing the short bus from a middle school, driving it all over town while running down trashcans and crashing into police cars while listening to Queen, Journey, Pantera, Def Leppard, Nirvana, STP, the Ramones and other great rock hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Unfortunately, the dream short bus stereo also plays the Cure.

No lie.

I don't know if any of the rest of you ever experience this, but my social brain muscle is much much harder to use some days than it is on others. It is like waking up with a headful of sliced lunch meat and broken glass. I am bothered by almost every conversation I have, being polite is a chore, and I think "fuckin' people" about ten times a day. Call it what you want - mood swings, residual depression, man-period - all I know is that I don't want to fucking talk to anyone about it or anything else for a couple of days at a clip. As a husband, father and University student, however, this is simply not an option. So I soldier on. And I make friends as I go.

Today, leading away from my last class, I am joined by one of my fellows for conversation. I subtly try to change direction and give hints, but this doesn't work. Additionally, I am given to understand that simply walking away suddenly is somehow more rude than what happens when I engage. Three minutes of me noncommittally grunting at whatever he said later, we get to this gem, somewhat influenced by the after-the-class discussion:

GUY: It's like with gay marriage.

ME: (Turning my head to give him my undivided attention but staying silent) (Aw, hell. I'm doing all I can to not talk to you, and my internal monologue just woke up.)

GUY: I was raised with strong values (bracing myself) and I'm a Christian (Okay, at this point I managed not to say anything. This is a victory that no one else was aware of, and my internal monologue was self-congratulatory to the point of near-masturbation.) and, and, it just doesn't work - it's not the natural law.

ME: Seems to work pretty well for gay people until straight people think they need to get involved. (I know, right?)

GUY: I have a lot of gay friends (Never good. If you're in a group and you think that simple associations with members of another group make you an expert in their...well, in their anything, you're a moron. "I have a lot of ______________ friends" is invariably a sign that conversation is skirting the fucking rails. Even if I said, "I have a lot of moron friends" and then attempted to make a generalization about them, you wouldn't accept it.) and when you talk to them, nearly every single one of them has a problem in their childhoods, something that happened. (And...)

ME: Lemme stop you right there. I think I see where this is going - you're about to make the contention that gay people are only gay people because they have some fucked up event in their childhoods, which is a bullshit contention unless you have hard data, which you don't, and even if you did I would question it and your motivations AND the proposed relationship to gay marriage because I'm a skeptic because it's really the only way to be that makes sense. Additionally, unless you're prepared to swear that your stillborn assertion is universally true, it's anecdotal, which makes it meaningless in terms of intelligent consideration, yeah? (My internal monologue was inaudible during this, as it was shouting in unison with my external mononlogue.)

GUY: Uh, yeah.

ME: See you Tuesday.

And I will. I will see him Tuesday. He sits like, two seats down from me in that class.

MTSU: Fall 2012

So, I'm back.

It's Fall, which in the deep South means that it's still too fucking hot to run to class - which no one apparently does anyway, either because they're all smarter than I am and planned their stuff closer to one another, or they simply don't give a shit - guess what my guess is?

The picture has one of my favorite things about our campus in it: The Walnut Grove, between Peck and Cope, is the result of an obsessive and patient thief with a nutsack. Heh. It's also beautiful and charming and one of my favorite places on campus to be. Next to the Honors Building coffee room with the fireplace when it's cold out.

Fun assortment of reasons I enjoy being on campus:

• Apparently, I don't look American. Twice now I've had someone come up to me and address me at length in another language. This amuses me, and I have to always repress the urge to Sam Jack on their ass and ask, "English, motherfucker, do you speak it?!?" Not that I particularly care; the panoply of other language sounds is one of things I enjoy most about MTSU that doesn't happen in the rest of Murfreesboro.
• Last week I met a guy who is too germophobic to press the crosswalk button. "So you just wait until someone comes up and pushes it?" "Or I jaywalk, yeah." "You're concerned about germs killing you but not about three tons of rolling metal with a teenager at the wheel crushing you into streetpaste?"
• Smoking on our non-smoking campus is being regarded by some as a form of socio-political resistance. "Look, they can't catch me - like they're really going to have like, a smoking task force. Anyway, they can have my smokes when I die." Which'll be sooner.
• I'm in the men's room last week and this guy bursts into the room with a resounding door crash and a splatter of blood pouring from his nose that he proceeds to wipe everywhere with water and towels while I watch, calmly washing my hands. It's on his shirt, shoes, and pants, the floor, the door, the sink and the counter. He has no idea how to deal with this, and equally calmly accepts advice about pressure, tilting, and sitting. "I've never had a nosebleed before." "Yeah, well, I've had a couple. Tilt your head back."
• Parking is still a nightmare. No, it's worse. If MC Escher and Kafka had an acid trip together and some civil servant woke in a cold sweat from dreaming about that.
• Jesus Christ drives a red VW Golf. I know this because he almost ran me down last Friday. I suppose this wouldn't have been a big deal, since he could Lazarus me right back to life, though. I don't know how he plays djembe with those nail wounds, though.
• Speaking of Christ, His Conversion Harassment Squad is out in full force for the beginning of semester, and I've been experimenting with simply going around them whilst they're talking, sometimes muttering, "I don't believe in you..." or telling them I'll listen to their pitch if they'll listen to mine. No one ever does. "How about a dance number, then?" Other responses: "Are you that religion with the guilt?" "No, I've NEVER actually heard of Jesus Christ - but I only have 15 seconds." "I'm actually on my way to a sin right now - can I stop back later?"
• Anthropology class: "Men and women communicate differently, research shows; does anyone know how?" "As a veteran of an 18-year committed relationship with a woman, I can tell you that men communicate by learning not to make generalizations about how women communicate."
• So far, I'm the only person who knows any Latin in any of my classes. Or Greek. This has come up more often than you might assume.
• Part of a phone conversation: "Honey, honey - look - I love you, I just can't hear you. At all." This seemed mildly tragic to me, and something they should've ironed out earlier in their relationship.
• And finally, this guy, making up a rap on his way to class: "Busted out my nine-inch ruler/opened up my math book/it was time for me to school 'er/on my way to classty nasty/about to break North so I'm not there lasty..."

Shit. I mean, I hope he was making that up.