Walk Like the Dead

Finally, Halloween.  Here at the family pirate ship, there's a lot of excitement going on.  Mini-P is itching to put on her vampire costume, get out there and terrorize the neighborhood in the interest of getting a bagful of Mini-Snickers bars.  I'm all set to inspect said Snickers, deem them "unfit for child consumption," and retreat with them to my office.

In case it wasn't completely clear in Thursday's post, SaucyWench is really ready to put this whole season to bed.  She does the holiday up right for Mini-P and me, but by end of October, she's a bit more, uh, verbal about how she feels about Halloween.  She's just not a fan.  For her, October apparently lasts six months.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never convince her to actually dress up in a matching costume with me (Frankenstein and his Bride?  Batman and Catwoman?  Bacon and Egg?  Dangling Participle and its Misappropriated Noun?  No?)

October's always a great time of year for late night TV.  Networks usher out all of the older movies that make my skin crawl: The Shining.  Carrie.  The original Halloween.  It's gruesome, nostalgic fun -- but Saucy refuses to watch any of them with me.  Which is sort of a big problem; because as much as I love those flicks, I don't want to watch them by myself.  (Wuss.)

In particular, she refuses to watch zombie movies.  There's something about the End of Days premise inherent to the genre that freaks her out.  I get it.  I do.  I just get off on it.

I had to watch the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead recently for our Top Zombie Flicks list on Culture Brats, and asked Saucy to watch it with me.

"No," she said firmly.
"Oh, come on.  1968.  How scary could it be?"
"No no no no no no.  You're on your own, bucko."
"But it's so old, and it's in black and white.  It's totally cheesy, it's funny; like when the first zombie sort of staggers up and--"
"No no no no no no no no la la la la la la la I can't hear you I can't hear you OHHH SAY CAN YOU SEE, BY THE DAWN'S EARLY--"
"Ok, ok.  Fine.  Geez."

So I had to watch it alone.  Dammit.  Freaked me all the hell out, I didn't sleep well, and the next day Saucy just gave me the I Told You So look.

"At least tell me you're going to watch The Walking Dead with me," I said.  (This is the new series on AMC premiering tonight.  Looks completely awesome.  And disturbing.  I'm psyched.  And sort of scared.)

"We'll see," she said vaguely.

We'll see?  We'll see??  You know what?  That's fine, Wife.  I'll remember this abandonment when the Zombiepocalypse comes.  Good luck defending yourself when our daughter is chasing you through the house trying to gnaw off your arm.  Don't come crying to me.

Happy Halloween, everyone.  Have a fun, safe night.  And remember: you need to actually crush the skull or sever the head to keep zombies down.  Anything less and they'll pop right back up again like toast.  Don't half-ass the job.

P.S.  Here's a behind-the-scenes clip from The Walking Dead.  Turns out walking like the dead takes training.

SaucyWench and the Village of the Damned

First, I need to say thanks to you guys -- moments after I published Monday's self-deprecating-yet-self-aggrandizing post, I felt like a serious tool.  In fact, I almost went back and took it down; but one of my very few self-imposed rules is that I won't take back the stuff that I post here.  So I let it ride, despite the fact that rereading it made me feel like I was literally begging for affirmation.  Your comments were kind, encouraging, and insightful.  You made me feel a lot better.  I'm not kidding.  I'm very grateful for you, and now I have several new blogs of yours that I'll be frequenting.
P.S.  If I start to feel sorry for myself on this blog again, feel free to slap me around a little.  Sometimes tough love is the only solution.  

*

Now, moving on to what this post is actually about:

Halloween.

We love Halloween here on the S.S. Didactic.  Seriously, the whole family.  Big spooky Halloween love.  Ok, most of us love Halloween.  Two-thirds of us really, really love Halloween.

The Mini-Pirate and I put it right up there with Christmas as the best time of the year. To celebrate, we have several traditions:

1.  We light the traditional Franken-lamp.

Fire bad.

2.  We read from our favorite book of Halloween Franken-poems.

Buy this book.  I'm not kidding.  There's a poem in it entitled "Godzilla Pooped on my Honda."
Do you need another reason?

3.  And in the evenings, I rock my awesome Franken-pants.

Hands off, Ladies.  He's married!

But that's nothing compared to what my wife does.  Every year, SaucyWench breaks out our four giant boxes of Halloween decorations, and does the house up right.  She makes the place look great: decorations everywhere.  Fake spiderwebs, piles of bright orange pumpkins, grinning wooden skeletons, candles and knickknacks on every surface.  When she's done, the house is festooned in Halloween decor. That's right.  Festooned. Saucy creates serious Festoonage.

Part of the massive Festoonification includes the assembling of The Halloween Village, a kitschy ceramic cityscape that takes up more and more space in our living room every year as my own mother, sponsor of the village's urban expansion project, sends us new buildings.

The Village ("of the Damned," growls Saucy)

This badly taken picture only shows part of it, and doesn't come close to doing it justice -- we're talking about a true kitsch explosion.   It's actually becoming a Halloween Megalopolis.  It takes my wife hours to assemble: shelling each little building out of its styrofoam cave, arranging and hiding all the cords (yes, it lights up), and engaging in meticulous set dressing: placing the figurines, nestling the miniature pumpkins and trees, sprinkling tiny autumn leaves across the landscape.  It takes forever, and drives my wife crazy.  By the time she's done, she's exhausted, cranky, and in need of a stiff drink.  The killer part of it all?  She does all this despite the fact that...

...she doesn't even like Halloween in the first place.

"Why does the mean lady hate us, Bobby?  Why?"
"I don't know, Alice!  Let's get her!  EVERYBODY GRAB YOUR TORCHES!"

I wouldn't say she hates it, but it's not her favorite holiday.  She just doesn't have a lot of love for it.  But she knows that Mini-P and I do, so she goes through the trouble of decorating, of festooning, and of village assembly, every year.  She knows it makes Mini-P and I happy.  The kid jumps up and down and spazzes out when the village lights up, knowing it signals the start of Spooky Season.  And I dig it because I love traditions.  I can't help it.  I love pulling the boxes out of the garage every year.  I love seeing our house transform.  I too love our kitschy, ceramic village, just like I love Franken-lamp, and reading Halloween books with my daughter.

Thank you, Wife of Mine.  As always, you make every holiday special, every year.  What do you say I put on my Franken-pants this weekend after the kid collapses into her trick-or-treat sugar coma and show my gratitude.



Hey, come back.

Why We Blog (or: No One Likes a Whiny Pirate)

I've been experiencing a bit of an existential crisis recently, blog-wise.

I place part of the blame on a good friend of mine with whom I had lunch last week.  She's a regular reader of this blog, although it should be acknowledged that she has no choice -- we've known each other since 8th grade, and if she didn't read my blather, I'd know.  (I quiz her regularly about recent posts:  "So!  Which funny thing that I wrote recently did you find the most funny?  You can give more than one answer.")

We were talking about my recent blog frustration, which has been caused -- well, by a lot of you people, frankly.  You fellow bloggers.  I'm reading you regularly, and you're putting out a lot of great stuff lately.  You know who you are.  You, with your sharp wit and smart writing, your ability to draw me in with your great stories, the way you open windows into your lives.  You do this thing where you get me reading a post, get me to follow along, chuckling here and there, and then you laser me with an insight I didn't see coming, leaving me sitting in my chair, dumbfounded.  You're quite talented, you know.  But how the hell is your talent supposed to make me feel, huh?  Who failed to get the memo about how the universe is supposed to be constantly validating my existence?  You, Mr./Ms. Talent, that's who.

I was describing my inadequacy issues to my friend, who's heard it all before.  This is someone I've known since 8th grade, which means she's been listening to my "Why aren't I more talented?" bullshit for decades.  The only other person who hears all this crap is my wife, who's kindly and patiently endured my bellyaching ever since we met fourteen years ago.  Pity her.  I'm no picnic, is what I'm saying.

So my friend listened to me moan for a little while: I've got writer's block, I'm not doing anything new or interesting on my blog, all the other bloggers in the world are better than me, the universe loves them better, yaddah yaddah blah blah blah spew belch shutthefuckupalready.

It was embarassing, now that I look back on it.  No one likes a whiny pirate.

"I have a question," my friend finally asked me when I stopped being pathetic long enough to take a breath.

"Ok," I said hopefully, ready for heaps of praise about how I'm so awesome and I don't even know it, which makes me even more awesome.

"Here's the thing about your blogging," she said.  "I like reading your writing.  I think it's good stuff, and it's cool that you do it.  But... what's the point?"

Huh?  I looked at her blankly, unable to comprehend the question.

She continued.  "I mean, what's your purpose in having the blog?  Is it supposed to further some goal?  Is there money in it?  You're a writer -- do you picture it as a way to help you sell a book someday?  Is there a reason to make a name for yourself in the blog world?  What do you personally get out of it?"

I forget exactly how I replied.  I think I said, something like, "Um, well, erg, uh... I don't know, what do you get out of.. your face!?!"

Her question was, of course, excellent.  Damn her.

What do I want to get out of blogging?

I realized that I'd gotten a little confused about why I blog.  Hence my existential spiral.

Most of my posts are about parenting and teaching, the two endeavors that fill my days, so those are my main contexts.  Within the realm of Mom and Dad sites, I've seen that some blogs give advice, while others ask for advice.  Some tell funny stories, some teach lessons.  Some report news, and others promote products.  Some blogs are about contributing to a community of like-minded folks; others are about getting more page hits and drawing more eyeballs to the site.

Well, let's face it.  We all want more eyeballs.  I'm no exception.

There's nothing wrong with any of the above reasons for having a blog.  Readers have different tastes, and there's an audience out there for everyone.  We all know what type of blog keeps us coming back, and which ones we only visit once.

But that last part?  The getting more eyeballs part?  That's become a bit more of an obsession for me that it should.  When I read over recent posts, I see several that I wrote purely because I thought they'd get me more readers.  "Now this is funny stuff," I thought right before hitting Publish.  "This will definitely get me more readers, several of whom will try and figure out where I live so they can camp outside my house.  Excellent!"  And those posts are, predictably, pretty shitty.  Wild flails.

My friend asked the question, "Why do you blog?" and I was forced to engage in some introspection about this humble pirate blog and about myself.  Here's what I'm slowly figuring out:

1.  I like Funny, but Funny isn't easy.  Funny is hard to pull off on a blog, and there's a thin line between Funny and Trying Too Hard. I've been guilty of the latter often in my life.  I'll bet money that I'll be guilty of it again.  Possibly before the end of the day.


2. Obsessing about followers doesn't work.  When I write a post solely in the hope that it will increase the number of little pictures in my Follower box, I write some pretty rotten stuff that isn't worth anyone's time.  Sorry 'bout that.

3.  Good stories come from real stuff.  This one I already knew, actually, so that's good.  I have yet to make up a story just to fill a post.  Between my family and my job, there's a surplus of interesting stories out there.  So that's a bit of good news.

4.  I suck at strategizing.  Some say a successful blog is one that's positioned very distinctly: Dad Blog.  Mom Blog.  Teacher Blog.  Gossip Blog.  Wacky Humor Blog.  There's plenty of evidence that this is true.  This blog is not well-positioned, sadly.  I do like defining myself as a Dad Blogger;  I like being a part of that contingent; there are some great guys/great writers in that group.  And I like writing about the ups and downs of teaching college too.  I need to be able to do both, and more.  So I bounce around a lot.

5.  I am a pretentious ass.  There's an element of Look at me look at me look at me! in every blog, and this one is clearly no exception.  The fact is, writers by nature are pretty self-absorbed.  Writing an entire post like this one to discuss my worth as a blogger is Exhibit A, right?  I will never talk shit about other writers/bloggers who seem obsessed with themselves, since we all are.  It's just true.

6.  I might use this blog for a promotional purpose some day.  I won't pretend otherwise.  Like so many others, I too have a novel-in-progress that's currently crouching in a dark corner of my hard drive, mocking me.  If I ever finish it, and if it ever gets sold, I can absolutely imagine using this blog to help put the word out about it.  For this reason, I'll never knock blogs that have some promotional content.

*

My friend asked, "Why do you blog?" and I gave it a lot of thought.  I decided to write a post about it in an attempt to feel better about what I'm doing.  So here's what I've come up with:

At the end of the day, I have this blog because I want to fill a space in the world.  I want a reason to write, even when I don't feel like I have anything valuable to say.  I want to, yes, call attention to myself.

Most of all, I want to write things down and interact with other people who write things down.  I want to have a seat at that table.  I think that's as good a reason as any to have a blog.

You know what?  I do feel better.

It's Alive!

Monday morning.  School day.  6 a.m.

I walk into her room.

Me:  Goooooood morning!  Rise and shine!  Time to start the day!

The motionless lump under the blanket does nothing.

Me:  Time to get rolling!  School today!  Let's hit it!

Motionless Lump twitches.  I poke at the lump until it shows the first stirrings of life.

Me:  Okay!  Do you want toast for breakfast!

Lump:  Gronk.

Me:  Sorry, didn't catch that.

Lump:  Not getting up.

Me:  Of course you are.  Let's get a move-on!  It's a school day!

Lump:  (nestling further under her blanket) Don't care.  Comfy here.

Me:  That's great, but every kid in America is getting ready to go to school right now.  So get up!

Lump:  Can't go to school.

Me:  Why?

Lump:  Sick.  Sniff.  See?

Me:  Come on, you.  It's getting late.  It's time.  Up we go.

Lump:  (pulling blanket back over head) Gronk.  Go 'way.

Every morning we do this.  Every weekday morning, that is.  I go in, I try to wake her, I use all my Mr. Nice Guy/Up And At 'Em tactics first, but it only gets me this.  Lifeless child.  And soon, I start to lose a little patience.

Me:  Get up.  Now.  I mean it.  Don't make me get out the electric paddles.

Lump:  Mfffffrrrmmk.  (She rolls away from me, apparently unable to articulate words anymore.)

Me:  Get.  Up.  Now.

I reach down and yank away her blanket.  Beneath, the clenched figure of my 9-year-old daughter squeezes itself into an even tighter fetal ball.  Yes, it's cute.  Sure, fine, all kids are precious when they're sleeping.  Sometimes at night, right before I turn in myself, I poke my head into her room to check on her.  I'll watch her for a minute, this tiny sweet bug of a girl whose feet are drawn up beneath her, who sometimes curls one arm around a stuffed animal in her sleep without realizing it.  Her eyes dart beneath her lids as she dreams.  I listen to the occasional huff and sigh of her breath.  She's safe in the nest of her warm room, just like she was safe in my arms as a baby, when I'd rock her to sleep after a late feeding.

Yea, yea, yea.  Adorable.

On Saturday mornings, this precious kid is awake and bouncing off the walls before sunrise, by the way, refusing to let her parents sleep in.

But during the week, on mornings when we have work and school breathing down our necks?  I get this.  This unmovable dead thing on the slab.

But I will not be denied.

I will raise it, this lifeless creature.  I will harness the elements, draw lightning down from the heavens and pierce the flesh of this doomed corpse, this soulless mass of meat and bone, and jolt its heart.  I WILL GIVE MY CREATION LIFE.

Or I'll just tickle her until she falls out of bed.

Which I do, poking her ribs relentlessly, making her squeal in resentment until she finally rises, grumpily.  I smile down at my 9-year-old girl.  From somewhere deep within her, a surly, vengeful monster stares back.  Or maybe a future 15-year-old.

Doesn't bother me.  For I am the creator.  I am near mad with delirium, the joy of having raised the dead.  Again.  I do it every school day.

Me:  It's alive!  I've done it!  IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!  MWAAA HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

She raises one eyebrow at me.

Lump:  Do you have to say that every morning, Daddy?

California Wussification

I live in Southern California now, but I'm originally from Colorado.  That's where I spent my childhood and adolescence, which means my hobbies included skiing, rock climbing, base jumping, and grizzly bear wrestling.  Of course.

It gets cold up in them thar Rockies.  Weather frequently happens.  They get a lot of that snow that you read about in books, and they start getting it pretty early in the season, sometimes as early as... right around now.  When I was in elementary school, cold weather wasn't something to dread.  It was just a spoke in the ever-changing color wheel, from summer greens to autumn golds to winter's stark black against white.  I remember a lot of Halloweens as a child, arguing with my parents about how my super awesome Scooby Doo costume would be totally ruined if they made me wear a big heavy down coat over it.  Even if there was snow on the ground that night, I would've been happy to go trick or treating with only my thin, vinyl store-bought costume to protect me from frostbite, teeth chattering happily all the way through the neighborhood, my breath making clouds behind me.   (The Mini-Pirate will never know how lucky she has it -- when she canvasses the neighborhood for bite-size Snickers bars in a couple weeks, it'll likely be coat-free.)

In Colorado, the ground freezes by mid-October and next thing you know, each day starts with a thin veneer of ice over your windshield.  Your lawn is crunchy, you see your breath, and after that, you buckle down for the season.  You got your big clompin' boots making puddles by the front door.  You got your thick gloves that make it impossible to press the buttons on your Walkman while waiting for the bus to school.  You got Snow Days.

Back in high school, my friends and I would wander around town late at night in the dead of Winter, hanging out... outside. We'd walk up and down Boulder's outdoor mall on Pearl Street, or hang out in some downtown park or parking garage and play music, and smoke, and just be teenage.  The insides of our noses would freeze, and we usually lost feeling in our feet before the night was over, but it never seemed to bother us.

Sometimes we'd spend our Saturday nights wandering up and down the Pearl Street mall, a red-brick promenade lined with trees and little boutiques.  In the summer the mall would buzz with street performers and tourists strolling around with ice cream cones until late into the evening.  But after the first big frost of the year, it would start to clear out after sunset, the pedestrians retreating into the bars and restaurants that threw squares of light onto the snow banks outside.  And by the end of November, it would be just us -- hanging out under street lamps, chain smoking, perfectly content in ten-degree weather, wearing carefully ripped and frayed clothing in an attempt to pretend we were homeless runaways.

Older folks would hustle past us on those evenings, bundled up in fur-lined coats that made them look like yetis in a hurry.  Sometimes they'd see us and say, "What is wrong with  kids today?  They don't have the sense to come in from the cold."

We'd laugh.  Cold?  It's toasty out here!  Stupid thin-blooded old people.  Ha!  So fragile, we laughed.  We will outlive you, you brittle adults,  and after you've wasted away, we will RULE THE EARTH!  Because of our awesome youth and toughness!

Good times.

*

It's twenty-(ahem) years later, and I'm living in Southern California, where the Fall temperatures, which usually hover in the toasty Indian Summer 80s, dipped down to an invigorating 65 degrees this past weekend, bringing in a wee bit o' unseasonal rain.  (Cue the Minnesota readers:  Oooooh.  Brrr.  How hard for you sad, sad Californians.)

And I was frakkin' freezing here.

My blood is thinning.  My skin doesn't heat itself with an internal youth fire like it used to.  I'm now adding something new onto the list of Things I Never Thought I Would Become, beneath Parent, Teacher, and Bald: Big Weather Wuss.

I blame California completely, of course.

I was sitting around our house yesterday afternoon huddling under a damn blanket.  Wearing slippers.  At one point I considered donning a hat, because my ears were chilly.  I could barely remember walking around with my friends in Colorado, braving low temperature and arctic winds, and not caring.

It's ridiculous.  Do I need to move up to the Klondike to give my circulation something to fight?  Develop walrus skin?  SaucyWench and I are debating moving out of California someday; if we do, it will be to a place with weather.  The way I see it, I'll have two options if that ever happens. either toughen up and develop a sturdier epidermis, or invest in one of these:

Not me.  Yet.   But give it time.

Color choices include Ruby Wine, Hunter Green, and Chocolate Brown, apparently.

(Sigh.)


P.S.  I'm over at DadCentric today, writing about a little Halloween costume debate the Mini-Pirate and I are having.  Check it out here.

The Terminator Vs. Narcolepsy Boy

I walk into my 8 a.m. class this morning and see my thirty Freshmen.  They're in various stages of waking.  Many of them have Starbuck's cups in front of them, a couple have brought snacks, all of which is fine with me.  On the first day of the semester, I always tell my early sections that they can and should bring whatever they need to help them come in awake, alert, and ready to roll.  Coffee?  Fine.  Absolutely.  Foul-tasting energy bar?  Sure.  DIY adrenalin shot to the heart?  By all means.  Do what you gotta do to bring your A game into a class discussion.

I ask everyone to get out their books, and we kick off our discussion of the day.  It's good -- not only is everyone awake, but they appear to have read the material closely enough to have some opinions about it.

Everyone, that is, except Narcolepsy Boy.

Narcolepsy Boy has yet to keep his eyes open for an entire class session this semester.  I don't know much about him, beyond the fact that he looks incredibly young for his age.  He's a Freshman, so he's got to be at least 18; but he's so baby-faced that he looks 15.  I'm pretty sure he has yet to experience his first shave.  Beyond that, he's your typical So Cal kid: blond, rangy, always wearing a backwards baseball cap and ear buds that I have to ask him to take out at the start of class.  On my roll sheet for this class, I've actually written "frat  boy" next to the kid's name.  It's just his look.  I tell myself I only engage in such stereotyping to help me remember who's who at the start of the term.

A few weeks ago, I pulled Narcolepsy Boy aside and told him he needed to stay awake in class.  It was our first conversation about it, so I wasn't a total dick; but I did say that if he wanted to make it through the semester, he'd need to change his habits.  Get more sleep, go to bed earlier, hoover down an energy bar or two in the morning, something.  He nodded at me, apologized, and shambled out.  He may have been sleepwalking.

After that, he started each class session by downing one of these bad boys:

I'm not a fan of Crack in a Can.  I think most energy drinks will make your brain explode if you have enough of them.  I should know -- when the Mini-Pirate was a newborn, I would kill three cans of Monster energy drink every morning to help me juggle work and new-dadhood.  That's in addition to two pots of coffee a day.  It got bad.  I talked fast.  A lot.  I would literally vibrate just sitting on the couch.  I blame my current Restless Leg Syndrome on it, completely.

So when I first noticed Narcolepsy Boy downing 5-hour Energy supplements, I said nothing.  They're not healthy, but his body, his choice, right?  And if it helps him stay awake in class, more power to him.

On this particular morning, I see that Narcolepsy Boy has, not one of those little bottles on his desk, but four.

That's not healthy, obviously.

But guess what?  They don't even help.  Halfway through class, the dude slumps down until his foreheads hit the desk.  Asleep, yet again.

Goddamn this kid.

Class ends.  Narcolepsy Boy wakes up groggily as the other students rummage in their backpacks and unfold their phones.  He sits up, wipes some off the drool of his face, and starts to stumble towards the door.

"Not so fast," I say to him.  "We need to talk."

If he were an upperclassman, I'd just say to hell with it.  I can't change his late-night behavior, and that's not my job.  But this is his first month of college.  And however he's spending his free time, if he continues like this, he's either going to flunk out of school, or submerge into a permanent stage of Inception-like dreaming from which he'll never awaken.  But he's a Freshman, and I'm feeling the need to be the Fuckin' Terminator, today, apparently.

We've had this conversation once already, so I'm legally entitled to be an asshole this time, right?

Narcolepsy Boy stands in the middle of the room as everyone else leaves.  The dude is seriously swaying on his feet.

"Chad, this is getting ridiculous," I say once it's just the two of us in the room.  Possibly a little bit louder than necessary.  "You've been awake for a total of fifteen minutes since the semester started, do you realize that?"

"I'm sorry," Narcolepsy Boy says.  He's not looking up at me.  "I know we talked about it before.  I've been trying to do better."

"Trying?  How, exactly?"

He doesn't answer.  That's fine, because I have a lot more to say.  "It's not just the fact that you're sleeping through class," I lecture at him.  "You're handing in assignments that don't even meet the minimum requirements.  Probably because you're not awake to hear the requirements in the first place.  You know what I  mean?  Seriously -- do you have any idea what's we're even talking about in class right now?"

"I know," he says.  "I'm really sorry.  I don't mean to show any disrespect to anybody."

Apologies?  He's giving me apologies?  The Terminator does not accept apologies.

"Respect?  It's not about respect," I say, hands in my hips.  (That's right, I'm really feeling my oats now, boy.  I'm ramping up to give this kid the lecture of his life.  In one fell swoop I'm going to turn his whole world around.  Why?  Because I am large and formidable and I AM GOING TO TEACH THIS KID A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, DAMMIT.)  "It's about being an adult!  It's about taking some personal ownership!  I don't care if you live in the dorms, and everyone's always up late--"

"I don't live in the dorms," he mutters.  Is he trying to disrupt my flow?  Throw a rock in my path of destruction?

"Oh.  Still.  Doesn't matter!  You're obviously partying way too hard.  Are you pledging?  Is that what's going on?  Because I'll tell you right now that if you have to make a choice between being in a frat and passing your classes, I'd choose the latter if I were you.  If you flunk out of school, you don't get to keep going to Greek meetings, got it?  You need to check your priorities!"

"I'm not pledging."

"Then what's the deal?"  I ask, looming over him, glaring at him with my Terminator laser eyes.   Target acquired.  Whatever he's going to give me, excuse, belligerence, I'm ready to shoot it down.

And that's when I notice that this kid doesn't look angry or defensive, despite the fact that I'm almost yelling at him.  He doesn't look mad, or even sullen.

He looks exhausted.  Exhausted and miserable.

When he talks, his voice catches on a hook in his throat.  "My daughter is three months old and she has colic," he says.  "My girlfriend works during the day, so I stay up with the baby at night."

Oh.

He says 'my daughter' like it's in an unfamiliar language, as if he's never actually said it out loud before, and he's surprised to hear how the phrase sounds in his voice.

"I'm sorry," he says again.  "It's just really hard.  She cries all night."  This 18-year-old who could pass for 15 suddenly looks absolutely defeated by something that has nothing to do with me.

Oh.

Terminator turns off laser eyes and retracts machine gun arm.

I tell him to come by my office later and we'll talk for a while, if he wants.

Which he does.

Fridays Are For Awesome #1: The Art of Darwyn Cooke

My pal Otherworldlyone over at Calling People Names threw me a meme to complete about a month or so ago.  The task was to write posts about seven things you love.  Since I received it just as my semester was starting, I never got around to it. (Once school gets rolling, my productivity at home tends to hit three or four speed bumps in a row.  A giant mutant super speedbump, if you will.  As always, I blame my students and their neediness.)

My plan was to start the Seven Things series this week, but then decided to do something else with it instead.  I thought I'd take every Friday (or at least, periodic Fridays... heh) to blog about something that I find to be chock full of awesome, hopefully something that readers may not have been exposed to yet.  (Like bird flu.  You know it's out there, you just don't know where it's lurking.)

I'm not real big on rules and structure for myself, so I may not do this every single consecutive Friday.  But I dig the idea of some sort of ongoing series.  And I like things that are awesome. And I really like taking credit for awesome things that other people do that have nothing to do with me.  So that's all win here.

This inaugural Awesome Friday is reserved for one of my favorite graphic novelists.

His name is Darwyn Cooke.

I love graphic novels -- good ones, at least.  I was first exposed to them through the superhero genre.  I think the first actual book-bound superhero story I bought was the Death of Superman, back in 1993.  (You comic-loving youngsters may not remember, but DC Comics actually killed off Superman at one point and let him stay that way for a year.  No one was fooled into thinking it was anything other than a ploy to booster readership, and I wouldn't exactly call it high literature.  Still, it made for a meaty story arc at the time.)  That got me going.  Years later I read Watchmen and was enthralled.  And several years after that, I discovered Cook's two-book series called DC: The New Frontier, written and drawn by Cooke.

The Final Frontier is an origin story about what geeks aficionados refer to as the Silver Age of DC heroes, which took place during the late 50s/early 60s.  Cooke took classic hero stories from those years, and  retold them against a Cold War backdrop that included the Civil Rights Movement, the Korean War, and the space race.  I loved Cooke's retro pastiche artwork -- he did in only a few bold strokes what other artists try to accomplish with meticulous overdetailing.  Each frame was a rich, textured portrait to me, with a crispness that was reflected in Cooke's writing.

But what I really love is what I'm reading right now.  Last year, Cooke decided to depart from the superhero genre and dive into some good old-fashioned noir fiction.  He adapted the classic 1960s hardboiled Parker series by Donald Westlake (written under the pseudonym Richard Stark), and has crafted two out of four planned re-visions from the original novels that are, to put it simply, flat-out gorgeous.

Stark's Parker is a remorseless thief who stalks cities artfully rendered by Cooke in steely black and blue.  The plot so far is about revenge on double-crossers and taking down a big crime syndicate.   Parker is an anti-hero with a vendetta.  The bad guys are big-time.  The dames? Schemers.  The dialogue is sandpaper-rough, and the two-color format gives everything a dark patina that reminds me of how I felt the first time I watched Double Indemnity.

I'm really enjoying what Cooke has created.  You might too.  Even if you're put off by the whole comics thing -- if you're into mystery novels and seriously flawed characters, you might like this.

And that's the first edition of what might be a dopey new series.  By me.  On Fridays.  Because Fridays are for awesome.

New Kid on the DadCentric Block

High drama in the Dadblogiverse this week!

Interesting times, here in the usually idyllic suburbs of dadblogvania.  Some recent editorials and online dialogues raised a few buzzy questions about dadblogs: who reads them (Other dads?  Other parents?  Hot single women with cheerleading outfits?), why dads write them (To vent?  To commiserate?  To make millions with a marketable brand?), and of course, whether or not dadblogs in fact flat-out suck.

Then, one brand spankin’ new dadblogger came out of nowhere with a new blog, hit the ground running and immediately got 457,288,932,563 loyal followers after writing one allegedly honest and powerful post – and then wrote several more subsequent posts talking about how powerful and honest he is.  Soon after that, another dadblogger called shenanigans on the first guy.  Some other folks (including me) were like, Fuck Yea, that first dude’s a douche! We call shenanigans too!, then a couple other people were all, No Way, shut up!, and the first group was all, No, YOU shut up!, and then some new readers from somewhere else were all, Whaaa?  and then finally a few folks who don't actually have blogs were all, You guys should get out more.

Sort of a weird time for me to emerge from my own dim corner of blogdom and wildly wave a flag to say, “Hey!  I’m the new guy over on DadCentric!”

(I can't turn this button into a link.
You have to use the link below, or the actual button up on the right.)

But that's what I'm doing.  Waving my flag.  Yes, wildly.  The guys over at DadCentric are great dads, great writers, and best of all, great storytellers.  And it's my love for reading and writing stories that got me into this whole blog situation in the first place.

My first post over there is up now.  It's about yet another opportunity I recently had to be a piss-poor parent to my daughter, the always embattled-yet-resilient Mini-Pirate.  Go see!

P.S.  I've been fortunate enough to get a spate of new readers recently.  Hi, new readers!  

*waving at computer screen like a big spaz* 

This influx is largely due to links providing by some very kind blogging friends -- in particular, the kind maiden behind the hilarious Wait In the Van and the equally kind and soon-to-be-married PBFingers, who writes a great health-focused blog spotlighting seriously delicious food.   If you don't read them, it's important that you start.  Tell them the Pirate sent you.  

Bad Teacher/Bad Cop

Every once in a while, I lose my zen in class.  Not often.  But just on some days.  Today in one of my morning classes, for example.

This is a writing class, and we've been talking about various strategies for argumentation, illustrated by a range of sample articles in our textbook.  I've been assigning from the book for weeks now.

"Alright," I say at the start of class, "Let's look at the article you read for today.  It's on page 217."

I wait for students to act accordingly.  I don't need their eyes to light up with unbridled enthusiasm or anything: Get out our textbook?  Finally!  I thought you'd never ask!!  I've been itching to pull this bad boy out all day!  Let's do it! Let's discuss the reading!  Rigorously!  Let's take this baby out on the road and really open 'er up !!

That would be awesome, but I don't need it to feel good about our productivity.  I just want them to pull the book out and flip to the right page.  I'm happy to call that a Win.

And yet, as I wait, no one seems to be doing anything.

"Okey, Dokey," I say again, "Let's get right to it.  Page 217."

More aimless staring.  At the chalkboard.  The door.  Their desks.  Their shoes.  It's weird to have 30 people avoid eye contact with you all at the same time.

"And... we're off.  Here we go.  Page 217-arooni."

I am nothing if not persistent.  And yet there is still only distant staring.  Stillness.

"All aboard the train to higher learning.  First stop: page 217."

Crickets.

"Time to conquer page 217 with an UNHOLY FURY!!!  YEAA!!!  WHO'S WITH ME!?  COWER BEFORE US, PAGE 217!!!"

Nothing.

It becomes clear that out of thirty students, only two of them brought their textbooks to class today.  Despite the fact that they'd all been assigned a reading from it.  Despite the fact that I'd said in class that we'd be looking at material that's actually written on pages actually found inside the book, so it would be important to actually bring it.

Despite the fact that the course syllabus, in the Required Class Materials section, says:  Please bring our textbook to class everyday.  Just like that, in bold.

I wrote it in bold, you guys.  Granted, I tend to put a lot of stuff in bold on my handouts.  But that's just because a lot of stuff is important.  I like to emphasize.  And let me also add this: the book I made them buy?  Dirt cheap by academic publishing standards.  I scoured the industry over the summer and found a book that would cost students less than twenty bucks.  Why?  Because I want a good rating on ratemyprofessor.com care.

"Guys," I say, feeling my forehead vein start to pulse.  "Where.  Are.  Your.  Books?"

No one has anything to say.  A couple students make the feeble, fake attempt at rummaging around in their backpacks before coming up empty, shrugging, as if they themselves have no idea what's happened to their books.  It's like a mystery.  The Case of the Goddamn What the Hell Is The Problem With College Kids Today And Their Total Lack Of Freaking Responsibility.  Call the Scooby gang.

So I lose it.  Just a little.  I don't yell, because I never yell.  I do however launch into a little sermon/performance art piece I like to call "What part of 'bring the book everyday' do you not understand?"

I go off.  I don't call them names, and I don't swear at them (much), but I do go off. "What makes you think it's ok to just blow off a basic requirement like that?" I say at one point.  "Would you act this way at your job?  If you boss asked you to bring something to a meeting, would you forget and then just shrug it off?"  (Yes, the comparison of classroom behavior to professional behavior is a flawed analogy.  Speaking of, did you know that Flawed Analogy is one of 42 defined logical fallacies often found in contemporary arguments?  It's one that's actually discussed at length... in a chapter of the goddamn book you people were supposed to read and bring to class today.)

I'm worked up.  My face feels warm, despite the fact that I'm not new to this teacher-student Thunderdome-like arena.  I hate being a cop in class.  This is college.  I'm standing in front of them, hands on my hips like I suddenly morphed into my own father.  The Vein is throbbing.  They can probably see it, like a mini-me on my forehead, just as angry as me.  In fact, The Vein probably has a tiny vein on its own forehead, which is also throbbing.

And then one dude slouching in the back, bookless, remorseless, says:  "Dude, why do you even care if we bring it?"

Wow.

Good question.

I stand in front of them, listening to a whole new sort of expectant silence in the room.

I have no answer.

Aw, Crap. Another Birthday Post.

Last week was the Mini-Pirate's birthday.  She turned nine.  I didn't really do anything here at the cyber pirate ship to commemorate it.  I did blather a bit about Disneyland, where we celebrated.  But that was more or less a Cranky Old Man post ("What are all these goddamn people here today?  Don't they realize I need my space?").  I didn't really talk about the fact that my daughter is, shockingly, older than she was a year ago.

She's freaking nine now.  I have to take a minute and wrap my head around that one.  This little bean spout that used to be small enough for me to cradle in one forearm and carry around in a testosterone-diffusing Baby Bjorn is now a coltish, always moving, all-knees-and-elbows nine-year-old girl who loves SillyBandz, Selena Gomez, and mystery novels.  And Star Wars.  And Scooby Doo.  Plus she has such a big crush on Han Solo that we're not allowed to say his name out loud because she loves him so much.

I started writing several Happy Birthday posts over the last week, but stalled out every time.  They were mostly letters to her -- that's what all the cool dad bloggers seem to do, and theirs always turn out well.  I experimented with various tones, but none of them felt right.

I tried Amazed:

Dear Daughter, 

I can't believe you're such a big tall amazingly talented girl!  You rock the world!  You're a star!  You're going to grow up and achieve all your dreams!  Because you can do anything!  You'll be president!  AND an astronaut ballet dancer gymnast veterinarian!  You're so awesome I have to go lie down for an hour!  Don't wake me until dinner!

I tried Sweet:

Dear Princess Sparkle Face, 

You're soooooooo special!  You are made of rainbow dreams and starlight.  I love you more than magical dreams and unicorns.  Let's have magical tea parties on fluffy clouds for EVER!!!

I tried Tough Love:

Dear Burden.

You're nine.  Get a job.

I finally tried Sincere:

Dear Kid of Mine,
Thanks for turning out so awesome, instead of some spoiled brat that embarrasses me in public.  Seriously, I appreciate it.  Your awesomeness has very little to do with me or your mom, I suspect.  You just are.  Your personality has been entirely consistent since you were born:

You've always been quick to laugh.  And even quicker to get hiccups when you laugh.  Your mom actually felt you hiccuping a lot in her belly before you were born, which means you were seriously cracking up a lot in there.

You take setbacks hard.  But you bounce back so fast -- I wish I was more like you in that way.  You seem to be intimidated by new situations, but only when your mom and I are around.  When you're left to your own devices, you transform into an independent problem solver.

You're interested in a lot of stuff, but you hate to admit it.  You're sort of weird like that.

You love superhero stories, like I do.  You think pirates are funny, like I do.  You love to sing more than just about anything.

When I Google my mental hard drive for memories of the first nine years, a few pop up:

• Like this one time, when you were a baby, I was up giving you your 2 a.m. feeding.  It felt really special -- you snuggled in my arms, gently slurping away at your bottle, this perfect weight in my arms.  Everything was safe and warm -- except for the fact while I was feeding you, I was also watching The Shining on TV.  It wasn't until the scene with the blood pouring out of the hotel elevators that I wondered if maybe I was scarring you for life by feeding you in front of the SCARIEST MOVIE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

• You and I spent hours trekking through Balboa Park downtown every other day during that first year.  We put miles on that fine, fine stroller.  We always followed the same route, which somehow involved a lot of me pushing you up steep hills.  I had the Body Mass Index of a track star that year, thanks to you.

• I remember your first day of preschool clearly.  You were three.  I had a minor freak out about leaving you there.  After I dropped you off that first morning,  I called your mother at work and told her I was really worried that one of the other little kids in overalls was going to try and sell you drugs.

• I also remember you posing proudly on our front porch on the first day of 1st grade, wearing a backpack roughly twice your size.  I was pretty sure you were going to fall over backwards before you got to the car and get stuck like a turtle on its shell.

• I still recall the first superhero identities you made for both of us when you were seven, which you solemnly said we had to protect in secret, no matter what.  You were Digger Girl, because you carried a shovel.  You deemed me Silver Cape Man, because I wore your silver cape.   You listed our powers: you explained that you had "all the powers in the universe."  (Lucky!) I had the power to... wear a cape.  You wrote it all down: our secret identities, our arch enemies, the location of our secret lair.  I'd never seen you craft anything so detailed before.  Maybe this girl will be grow up and be a writer, I thought.  Poor kid.

I remember how brave you were the first time you rode a horse.  The first time you danced in a toddler ballet recital.  The first time you lost a game of Candyland and got really, REALLY pissed off at me.  (Sorry.  Life lesson.)  The first time we watched Star Wars together.  Our first real conversation about death.  The first time we sang in the car together and I realized you had a good sense of pitch, Thank God.

So... listen.  In a few years, when you cross the threshold into adolescence, could you just remember how you and I were best buds once upon a time?  Because I'd really like to keep that going if we can.  Oh, and can I borrow some money?  Thanks.

Love, Dad.

Think I'll go with that last one.