Friday, April 23, 2010
To remember
Note to self: If, in general, you're not getting happier as you live, you're doing it wrong.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Computers and food
Computers and food don’t mix. That’s a rule at my house. Sure, secretly it’s an optional rule and is only mentioned when there’s a food-related mishap, but it sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? For me, the problem is that a big bowl of chips really lubricates my creative engine. Something about the crunching rattles my brain. In a good way, I mean. But eating at the computer…? My solution, which I encourage you to use in your own house, is a shop vac. Strap the tube to your chest, fire that sucker up, and you don’t have to worry about crumbs while you eat.
You do have to use appropriate caution. And, seriously, don’t wear a tie.
I’m in front of the computer a lot these days. It’s partly because technology has really improved the business of threatening others. Wrapping a note that says “We’ll grind you into sausage” around a brick and tossing it through a 2nd story window has some old school charm, of course, but you can’t beat software for creating fear. When that little paper clip guy on your computer screen glares at you with red pupil-less eyes and asks, in his little speech balloon, “How may I harm you?” it gets one’s attention. It’s unexpected. I’m rather proud of one piece of text I wrote for Clippie to say: “Ten days: enjoy ‘undo’ while you can.” Good stuff.
But lately I’ve been thinking that it would be good to have a secondary trade to fall back on.
My first thought was to start my own lottery because there’s a good profit margin. As soon as I started advertising, though, goons from the state stopped by to remind me that competition is only for the weak.
So next I started learning balloon animal construction. I was getting pretty good at making flowers, giraffes, puppies, and the Loch Ness monster, but then I realized that I was headed for divorce if I kept with it. I know you figure it was because of the jealousy associated with the inevitable groupies that swarm around anyone successful in the entertainment industry, but no: actually it was the sound. My wife, it became clear to me when she threatened to break a plate over my head, can’t endure the squeakity sound balloons make.
Lots of people have sounds they can’t stand: a fork on a chalkboard, fingernails scratching denim, or currency being removed from their wallet. For me, even thinking about the sloppy wet sound of flesh being ground into sausage gives me the willies. For my wife, it’s the rubbing of balloons.
So the other reason I’ve been in front of a computer a lot recently is because I finally found a secondary trade to pursue; even better, one that wasn’t going to result in harm to myself. It’s surprisingly similar to my own threatening letter work: I’m studying to become a professional lobbyist for fringe special interest groups.
Some of these groups actually have ideas I could get behind. “Resurrect the little dinosaurs” for instance. I mean, I know my kids would love chasing a little compsognathus around in a petting zoo pen. Eradicating volcanoes seems like a worthy cause, too. One group, operating on the theory “if you build it, they will come,” wants the government to construct a bus stop on the moon.
Some of my other favorites:
Talking birds should be allowed to vote.
Let’s use rocket engines to slow earth’s rotation so we actually do have more hours in each day.
“Hella” should be the scientific prefix for 10 to the 27th power.
Humans must be allowed to photosynthesize.
Each state should be required to choose an Official State Pokemon.
The “Monday Anti-Defamation League” claims that if the day of the week is assigned randomly each morning, then all days will share equally the difficult task of following a weekend. They claim it’s the easiest way to end prejudice against Mondays.
One group wants mandatory labeling to indicate the fiction content in all humor columns. Even columns written by amateurs!
The information from this last group I’m going to mention, though, really disturbed me. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Computer Hardware (PETCH) are lobbying for government land to be set aside so that old tired computers can enjoy their last days frolicking in green pastures. Now it’s obvious to me that domesticated computers can't be released back into the wild, since they simply wouldn’t be able to survive, but I didn’t realize what is currently happening in our world. Most obsolete computers, after all those years of service, are being ground into sausage. Yuck. Don’t people realize that computers and food shouldn’t mix?
-I.J. really really wishes the shop vac hadn’t just stolen his last few strips of bacon.
You do have to use appropriate caution. And, seriously, don’t wear a tie.
I’m in front of the computer a lot these days. It’s partly because technology has really improved the business of threatening others. Wrapping a note that says “We’ll grind you into sausage” around a brick and tossing it through a 2nd story window has some old school charm, of course, but you can’t beat software for creating fear. When that little paper clip guy on your computer screen glares at you with red pupil-less eyes and asks, in his little speech balloon, “How may I harm you?” it gets one’s attention. It’s unexpected. I’m rather proud of one piece of text I wrote for Clippie to say: “Ten days: enjoy ‘undo’ while you can.” Good stuff.
But lately I’ve been thinking that it would be good to have a secondary trade to fall back on.
My first thought was to start my own lottery because there’s a good profit margin. As soon as I started advertising, though, goons from the state stopped by to remind me that competition is only for the weak.
So next I started learning balloon animal construction. I was getting pretty good at making flowers, giraffes, puppies, and the Loch Ness monster, but then I realized that I was headed for divorce if I kept with it. I know you figure it was because of the jealousy associated with the inevitable groupies that swarm around anyone successful in the entertainment industry, but no: actually it was the sound. My wife, it became clear to me when she threatened to break a plate over my head, can’t endure the squeakity sound balloons make.
Lots of people have sounds they can’t stand: a fork on a chalkboard, fingernails scratching denim, or currency being removed from their wallet. For me, even thinking about the sloppy wet sound of flesh being ground into sausage gives me the willies. For my wife, it’s the rubbing of balloons.
So the other reason I’ve been in front of a computer a lot recently is because I finally found a secondary trade to pursue; even better, one that wasn’t going to result in harm to myself. It’s surprisingly similar to my own threatening letter work: I’m studying to become a professional lobbyist for fringe special interest groups.
Some of these groups actually have ideas I could get behind. “Resurrect the little dinosaurs” for instance. I mean, I know my kids would love chasing a little compsognathus around in a petting zoo pen. Eradicating volcanoes seems like a worthy cause, too. One group, operating on the theory “if you build it, they will come,” wants the government to construct a bus stop on the moon.
Some of my other favorites:
Talking birds should be allowed to vote.
Let’s use rocket engines to slow earth’s rotation so we actually do have more hours in each day.
“Hella” should be the scientific prefix for 10 to the 27th power.
Humans must be allowed to photosynthesize.
Each state should be required to choose an Official State Pokemon.
The “Monday Anti-Defamation League” claims that if the day of the week is assigned randomly each morning, then all days will share equally the difficult task of following a weekend. They claim it’s the easiest way to end prejudice against Mondays.
One group wants mandatory labeling to indicate the fiction content in all humor columns. Even columns written by amateurs!
The information from this last group I’m going to mention, though, really disturbed me. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Computer Hardware (PETCH) are lobbying for government land to be set aside so that old tired computers can enjoy their last days frolicking in green pastures. Now it’s obvious to me that domesticated computers can't be released back into the wild, since they simply wouldn’t be able to survive, but I didn’t realize what is currently happening in our world. Most obsolete computers, after all those years of service, are being ground into sausage. Yuck. Don’t people realize that computers and food shouldn’t mix?
-I.J. really really wishes the shop vac hadn’t just stolen his last few strips of bacon.
Supertasker
supertasker: someone who can do multiple task at the same time exactly as well (or even better) than they can do one at a...
I feel like I've forgotten something. Huh. Yes, my glasses are on my face. Yes, I am wearing my trousers. (Though, really, I guess that doesn't matter. I mean, you can't see me, can you? I never thought of it that way before. I guess I don't need to be so obsessive about writing only after I have carefully styled my hair, shaved my face, and picked the green bits out of my teeth.) Yes, I have a bowl of... oh, shoot! I forgot about the popcorn in the microwave. Bummer. I guess it's okay, though: there's been a stench like something burning for the last few minutes. Maybe it's the neighbors setting fire to their trash again. Not very appetizing.
So I've been training to become a supertasker. Only 2% of the people, the experts say, can actually handle...
Hey! I heard this joke. This guy sits down in a barber's chair and says, "I want a haircut." The barber says, "You need to remove your ear buds."
Oh oh oh! Did I tell you I finally found my missing checkbook?!? It has been in my camera bag for the past 5 months, I guess. This is going to save me from a lot of black glares: every time I have to create my own "I, Carly" checks with crayons and scraps of paper, the checkout line behind me gets kinda restless.
As part of my supertasker training, I'm now eating with utensils in my left hand... which leaves my right hand free to shoo away the dog. I wish I knew why he has suddenly started sitting under my chair at meal times. Eating with the wrong hand is supposed to give your brain a good workout; it is also proposed, for some reason, as a dieting strategy.
So the guy tells the barber, "But if I remove my ear buds, I'll die. You need to trim around them." The barber shrugs and starts cutting.
I just finished installing a 3rd stereo in my car. I'm no longer stuck with only music and an audiobook: now I can listen to traffic reports, too. It'd be nice, though, if I could also listen to my foreign language lessons and modern physics lectures at the same time and really take advantage of my commute time. Did I already tell you that I'm working my way up to Matrix-level learning? "I know kung fu." Oh, right, seeing "The Matrix" is a prerequisite for reading the column today. I forgot to mention that. If you're lucky, you're already watching the movie while you're reading this.
Hey, I found the dog's leash, too. I guess I put it with the Christmas lights. Which reminds me... suspenders do not make a good leash substitute, unless you're working with a dog trained for the Canine X-games or filming for "America's Funniest Home Videos." Though it is kinda fun on a steep hill if you wear inline roller skates and the dog is blindfolded.
After a while, the barber thinks the guy is asleep, so he pulls out the ear buds. Everything is fine for a minute or two, only then the guy turns blue and falls to the floor, dead.
Oh, yeah! I found a great audience gag the other day. By accident. At the podium I started to say "Good morning," but I forgot what time of day it was. So my greeting came out "Good morn... Good eve... Good morning!" The audience gave me a lot of laughter. I think I'm going to use this one again and again. I hope every audience is as receptive as at that early morning church service.
Though even none of them will admit it, I know that one of my kids pulled a clever prank on me last week. Leaving a pot of beans boiling on the stove, Rock Band 2 paused on the Wii, and the hermit crab cage half-cleaned, I ran downstairs to move the laundry along. When I opened the washing machine, it was empty. The only thing in there was the strong scent of bleach: not a single garment. I've known that machine to snack on a sock or two, but I figured that if it was hungry enough to eat them all, I was not putting my arm in there. After poking the washer drum with a stick and searching the surrounding area, I found the clothes exactly where they had started. I had to laugh. One of my kids really got me by pulling the white load back out of the washer after I started it running. The best trick -- which I still haven't figure out -- was getting those clothes completely dry so quickly.
Here's a fun little exercise: while you're solving a Sudoku puzzle, choose a random 7 digit number and determine the minimum nonzero offset, positive or negative, to a prime number. I think this actually started as a drinking game at MIT.
This supertasker training is tough on the brain, though. I've overheated mine a few times. Here is a tip for you: if you start hearing an otherwise unexplained boiling sound, you should eat an entire half gallon of ice cream -- preferably Denali Moose Tracks -- really quickly. Ignore the ice cream headache as best you can... this pain is actually your gain. One other tip: even if it seems like a good idea, never ever put Icy Hot or Ben Gay in your ears. The makers of those products are looking out for your best interests with their printed warnings. Believe me, that is not a cooling sensation anyone will appreciate.
At the library the other day I found, as I approached checkout, that I had misplaced my library card. After retracing all my path, I found the card in my hand. How embarrassing! But for that whole visit, including the search, I didn't drop a single juggling pin or fall off my unicycle.
So the barber listens to what's playing in the ear buds and hears, "Breathe in... breathe out... breathe in... breathe out..."
I figure that a supertasker is a kind of superhero. Why else would they give it that name? So that's why I've started wearing a cape. With trousers, though: those colorful tights might look stunning, but they run really short on pocket space. Do they make cargo tights?
Oh, I remember what I wanted to say this whole time. I wanted to remind everyone -- and this is very important -- do not wait until the last minute to get your income tax forms turned in. You do not want to risk being late. Me, I'm hoping to start gathering my 2009 paperwork together tonight.
- While typing this, I.J. was also working on three other tasks at the same time: cleaning his gutters, spreading humus and manure in his vegetable garden, and baking some yummy brownies.
I feel like I've forgotten something. Huh. Yes, my glasses are on my face. Yes, I am wearing my trousers. (Though, really, I guess that doesn't matter. I mean, you can't see me, can you? I never thought of it that way before. I guess I don't need to be so obsessive about writing only after I have carefully styled my hair, shaved my face, and picked the green bits out of my teeth.) Yes, I have a bowl of... oh, shoot! I forgot about the popcorn in the microwave. Bummer. I guess it's okay, though: there's been a stench like something burning for the last few minutes. Maybe it's the neighbors setting fire to their trash again. Not very appetizing.
So I've been training to become a supertasker. Only 2% of the people, the experts say, can actually handle...
Hey! I heard this joke. This guy sits down in a barber's chair and says, "I want a haircut." The barber says, "You need to remove your ear buds."
Oh oh oh! Did I tell you I finally found my missing checkbook?!? It has been in my camera bag for the past 5 months, I guess. This is going to save me from a lot of black glares: every time I have to create my own "I, Carly" checks with crayons and scraps of paper, the checkout line behind me gets kinda restless.
As part of my supertasker training, I'm now eating with utensils in my left hand... which leaves my right hand free to shoo away the dog. I wish I knew why he has suddenly started sitting under my chair at meal times. Eating with the wrong hand is supposed to give your brain a good workout; it is also proposed, for some reason, as a dieting strategy.
So the guy tells the barber, "But if I remove my ear buds, I'll die. You need to trim around them." The barber shrugs and starts cutting.
I just finished installing a 3rd stereo in my car. I'm no longer stuck with only music and an audiobook: now I can listen to traffic reports, too. It'd be nice, though, if I could also listen to my foreign language lessons and modern physics lectures at the same time and really take advantage of my commute time. Did I already tell you that I'm working my way up to Matrix-level learning? "I know kung fu." Oh, right, seeing "The Matrix" is a prerequisite for reading the column today. I forgot to mention that. If you're lucky, you're already watching the movie while you're reading this.
Hey, I found the dog's leash, too. I guess I put it with the Christmas lights. Which reminds me... suspenders do not make a good leash substitute, unless you're working with a dog trained for the Canine X-games or filming for "America's Funniest Home Videos." Though it is kinda fun on a steep hill if you wear inline roller skates and the dog is blindfolded.
After a while, the barber thinks the guy is asleep, so he pulls out the ear buds. Everything is fine for a minute or two, only then the guy turns blue and falls to the floor, dead.
Oh, yeah! I found a great audience gag the other day. By accident. At the podium I started to say "Good morning," but I forgot what time of day it was. So my greeting came out "Good morn... Good eve...
Though even none of them will admit it, I know that one of my kids pulled a clever prank on me last week. Leaving a pot of beans boiling on the stove, Rock Band 2 paused on the Wii, and the hermit crab cage half-cleaned, I ran downstairs to move the laundry along. When I opened the washing machine, it was empty. The only thing in there was the strong scent of bleach: not a single garment. I've known that machine to snack on a sock or two, but I figured that if it was hungry enough to eat them all, I was not putting my arm in there. After poking the washer drum with a stick and searching the surrounding area, I found the clothes exactly where they had started. I had to laugh. One of my kids really got me by pulling the white load back out of the washer after I started it running. The best trick -- which I still haven't figure out -- was getting those clothes completely dry so quickly.
Here's a fun little exercise: while you're solving a Sudoku puzzle, choose a random 7 digit number and determine the minimum nonzero offset, positive or negative, to a prime number. I think this actually started as a drinking game at MIT.
This supertasker training is tough on the brain, though. I've overheated mine a few times. Here is a tip for you: if you start hearing an otherwise unexplained boiling sound, you should eat an entire half gallon of ice cream -- preferably Denali Moose Tracks -- really quickly. Ignore the ice cream headache as best you can... this pain is actually your gain. One other tip: even if it seems like a good idea, never ever put Icy Hot or Ben Gay in your ears. The makers of those products are looking out for your best interests with their printed warnings. Believe me, that is not a cooling sensation anyone will appreciate.
At the library the other day I found, as I approached checkout, that I had misplaced my library card. After retracing all my path, I found the card in my hand. How embarrassing! But for that whole visit, including the search, I didn't drop a single juggling pin or fall off my unicycle.
So the barber listens to what's playing in the ear buds and hears, "Breathe in... breathe out... breathe in... breathe out..."
I figure that a supertasker is a kind of superhero. Why else would they give it that name? So that's why I've started wearing a cape. With trousers, though: those colorful tights might look stunning, but they run really short on pocket space. Do they make cargo tights?
Oh, I remember what I wanted to say this whole time. I wanted to remind everyone -- and this is very important -- do not wait until the last minute to get your income tax forms turned in. You do not want to risk being late. Me, I'm hoping to start gathering my 2009 paperwork together tonight.
- While typing this, I.J. was also working on three other tasks at the same time: cleaning his gutters, spreading humus and manure in his vegetable garden, and baking some yummy brownies.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Is it Good to be Cooperative?
I'm a cooperative person. I'll almost always put a lot of effort into complying to the wishes of other people. It turns out, though, that this doesn't ensure I'm making the world better for anybody.
Mitral valve prolapse is a heart condition which usually has a low risk of serious complications. The primary recognizable symptom is that the beating heart makes an extra sound that can be heard by a stethoscope. The stethoscope does not have to be cold, but you know it will be.
When I was in about 5th grade, my pediatrician heard some extra sounds in my heart. "Heart murmur." My memories of this are (1) I got to get out of school for part of a day, (2) I had to swallow some kind of barium gunk that filled up my throat until I thought I would choke, and (3) no one ever told me the outcome of the tests.
Fast forward nearly 15 years. Now I'm living in Southern California (though not taking the time to learn to surf, which I'll later regret) and a doctor says he hears an extra sound in my heart. I mention heart tests in my youth, but can only remember "heart murmur" and "barium." He says "mitral valve prolapse" and prescribes antibiotics to take when I got to get my teeth cleaned. I carefully file the prescription paper in the pocket of my demin jacket. I think it's still there.
Another few years and I'm back in Missouri. My new doctor asks about existing medical conditions. "Valve prolapse" is all I can remember. She adds the "mitral" that I forget, but can't hear the sound herself, no matter how cold she makes the stethoscope. Still, it's worth clearing this up, so I get to have an ultrasound.
Watching a technician's face appear more and more worried while she's rubbing an ultrasound device on your chest doesn't make for fun times. Especially when she starts checking the equipment for failures. I know a little about mistakenly blaming medical equipment: I remember when I was about five, I was lying on the sofa and I heard my Mom say "This thermometer is broken, too! 105 degrees F can't be right." "Mom?" I asked right before we headed to the emergency room, "Why do you keep getting really really big and then really really small?" Sometimes the equipment is fine and the problem is with the patient.
"I couldn't find your heart," the technician finally said, smiling, "But it's just way down here." Much lower in my chest that it belongs. Please do not include this in the ever-growing pile of evidence that I am not of terrestrian descent. I'm reasonably certain that you'll never be able to prove I come from elsewhere. I mention the mislocation of my heart only in case I do ever become a vampire and need to be staked for the good of all humanity: you need to aim a lot lower than you might think. Also, please note that if I'm a sparkly vegetarian vampire and you still feel the need to stake me, you have prejudices that you'll need to work through if you ever want to become a truly happy person.
The ultrasound shows I have a fine heart, once you are able to locate it. No evidence of mitral valve prolapse or any other difficult to name medical conditions. Finally I think to ask my Mom what the diagnosis had been in my youth. "Oh, " she said, "They didn't find anything wrong with your heart." The team of doctors finally decided that I was able to sit so still that they could hear heart sounds normally drowned out by other body movements.
All that testing -- including swallowing that barium -- because I was a child that could follow the command "sit still" with great concentration and compliance.
At least I found out that while I may think I'm a good and cooperative person and believe that I mean well, my heart isn't in the right place
Mitral valve prolapse is a heart condition which usually has a low risk of serious complications. The primary recognizable symptom is that the beating heart makes an extra sound that can be heard by a stethoscope. The stethoscope does not have to be cold, but you know it will be.
When I was in about 5th grade, my pediatrician heard some extra sounds in my heart. "Heart murmur." My memories of this are (1) I got to get out of school for part of a day, (2) I had to swallow some kind of barium gunk that filled up my throat until I thought I would choke, and (3) no one ever told me the outcome of the tests.
Fast forward nearly 15 years. Now I'm living in Southern California (though not taking the time to learn to surf, which I'll later regret) and a doctor says he hears an extra sound in my heart. I mention heart tests in my youth, but can only remember "heart murmur" and "barium." He says "mitral valve prolapse" and prescribes antibiotics to take when I got to get my teeth cleaned. I carefully file the prescription paper in the pocket of my demin jacket. I think it's still there.
Another few years and I'm back in Missouri. My new doctor asks about existing medical conditions. "Valve prolapse" is all I can remember. She adds the "mitral" that I forget, but can't hear the sound herself, no matter how cold she makes the stethoscope. Still, it's worth clearing this up, so I get to have an ultrasound.
Watching a technician's face appear more and more worried while she's rubbing an ultrasound device on your chest doesn't make for fun times. Especially when she starts checking the equipment for failures. I know a little about mistakenly blaming medical equipment: I remember when I was about five, I was lying on the sofa and I heard my Mom say "This thermometer is broken, too! 105 degrees F can't be right." "Mom?" I asked right before we headed to the emergency room, "Why do you keep getting really really big and then really really small?" Sometimes the equipment is fine and the problem is with the patient.
"I couldn't find your heart," the technician finally said, smiling, "But it's just way down here." Much lower in my chest that it belongs. Please do not include this in the ever-growing pile of evidence that I am not of terrestrian descent. I'm reasonably certain that you'll never be able to prove I come from elsewhere. I mention the mislocation of my heart only in case I do ever become a vampire and need to be staked for the good of all humanity: you need to aim a lot lower than you might think. Also, please note that if I'm a sparkly vegetarian vampire and you still feel the need to stake me, you have prejudices that you'll need to work through if you ever want to become a truly happy person.
The ultrasound shows I have a fine heart, once you are able to locate it. No evidence of mitral valve prolapse or any other difficult to name medical conditions. Finally I think to ask my Mom what the diagnosis had been in my youth. "Oh, " she said, "They didn't find anything wrong with your heart." The team of doctors finally decided that I was able to sit so still that they could hear heart sounds normally drowned out by other body movements.
All that testing -- including swallowing that barium -- because I was a child that could follow the command "sit still" with great concentration and compliance.
At least I found out that while I may think I'm a good and cooperative person and believe that I mean well, my heart isn't in the right place
Friday, April 9, 2010
"No." It seems so easy, doesn't it? Just two letters. One simple syllable. Your standard issue two-year-old can stream that word like broadband. “No no no no no!” I’m sure Mom would tell stories about how I wouldn’t quit saying that word when I was a mere toddling lad. Maybe I used up my share of “no” in my carefree youth, because now I simply can’t say that word.
Okay, so really I can actually say “no.” I mean, come on…
Every morning while I brush my teeth, I stand in front of the mirror saying the word “no” over and over again. Does it help? Put me in front of someone requesting an action of me and “sure” is all I can say. “Maybe,” if I’m feeling particularly spiteful. I can’t say “no” to a living person. Not even to high-quality manikins, no matter how often I try. I guess practicing when I do simply doesn’t help in real situations. Plus it gets the mirror splattered with toothpaste spit. One of the messes I deal with daily.
My inability to say “no” just got me into a new mess. My brother and some of my friends were dependent on a weekly humorous column to make their Mondays bright. Suddenly the writer quit. I’m sure he has his own good reasons and that my letter campaign threatening him, his loved ones, and even his cats will soon bring him back to where he belongs: entertaining us. He’ll learn the error of thinking that anyone in the spotlight can choose to step back out of it. But in the meantime, to fill the breach, I’ve “volunteered” to write up some humor. Actually, I just didn’t say “no” when my brother asked. Well, except to my spit-spattered image in the mirror.
My three loving, ever-cooperative children can still say “no” without any hesitation. Blasted carefree youth. See, my clever idea for my first column was to write about what happened when I taunted my cats.
I don’t have cats.
I needed some fake cats.
I asked my boy Ferdinand (not his real name) if he’d dress up as a cat so I could taunt him. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice of wording.
I tried again with my darling Thumbelina (not her real name), asking if she’d be a dear and dress up like a cat so Daddy could write funny things about her. I even pulled out the cat costume she wore for Halloween a couple years ago, the one that she would have worn to the library and to school back then if I had let her. “Here’s your chance to wear this costume on a normal day.” I think my girl is growing up. She didn’t even say “no.” With that facial expression, she didn’t have to.
Qui-gon (not his real name) was my last chance. I figured he’d play along with me. This boy has no problem doing unusual things: he wears a football helmet -- with full face mask -- to his figure skating classes. This boy has learned much about cats from reading the cat-based Warrior books. And, best of all, this boy is so driven to please people that none of his teachers can keep from gushing the word “sweet” when describing him. He’d sweetly cooperate, I figured. I figured wrong: his “no” was quick and ugly. And I wish there had been a mirror between us when he said it.
So, like any reasonable adult, I turned to stuffing chips into my mouth while mumbling profanities. But then I realized I did know someone who never says “no” to any request, no matter how strange.
And so, for next week’s column, I’ll write about how I felt being dressed as a cat while my children taunted me.
-- I.J. is new to this humorous column thing, but has a good deal of experience writing threatening letters to draw upon.
Okay, so really I can actually say “no.” I mean, come on…
Every morning while I brush my teeth, I stand in front of the mirror saying the word “no” over and over again. Does it help? Put me in front of someone requesting an action of me and “sure” is all I can say. “Maybe,” if I’m feeling particularly spiteful. I can’t say “no” to a living person. Not even to high-quality manikins, no matter how often I try. I guess practicing when I do simply doesn’t help in real situations. Plus it gets the mirror splattered with toothpaste spit. One of the messes I deal with daily.
My inability to say “no” just got me into a new mess. My brother and some of my friends were dependent on a weekly humorous column to make their Mondays bright. Suddenly the writer quit. I’m sure he has his own good reasons and that my letter campaign threatening him, his loved ones, and even his cats will soon bring him back to where he belongs: entertaining us. He’ll learn the error of thinking that anyone in the spotlight can choose to step back out of it. But in the meantime, to fill the breach, I’ve “volunteered” to write up some humor. Actually, I just didn’t say “no” when my brother asked. Well, except to my spit-spattered image in the mirror.
My three loving, ever-cooperative children can still say “no” without any hesitation. Blasted carefree youth. See, my clever idea for my first column was to write about what happened when I taunted my cats.
I don’t have cats.
I needed some fake cats.
I asked my boy Ferdinand (not his real name) if he’d dress up as a cat so I could taunt him. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice of wording.
I tried again with my darling Thumbelina (not her real name), asking if she’d be a dear and dress up like a cat so Daddy could write funny things about her. I even pulled out the cat costume she wore for Halloween a couple years ago, the one that she would have worn to the library and to school back then if I had let her. “Here’s your chance to wear this costume on a normal day.” I think my girl is growing up. She didn’t even say “no.” With that facial expression, she didn’t have to.
Qui-gon (not his real name) was my last chance. I figured he’d play along with me. This boy has no problem doing unusual things: he wears a football helmet -- with full face mask -- to his figure skating classes. This boy has learned much about cats from reading the cat-based Warrior books. And, best of all, this boy is so driven to please people that none of his teachers can keep from gushing the word “sweet” when describing him. He’d sweetly cooperate, I figured. I figured wrong: his “no” was quick and ugly. And I wish there had been a mirror between us when he said it.
So, like any reasonable adult, I turned to stuffing chips into my mouth while mumbling profanities. But then I realized I did know someone who never says “no” to any request, no matter how strange.
And so, for next week’s column, I’ll write about how I felt being dressed as a cat while my children taunted me.
-- I.J. is new to this humorous column thing, but has a good deal of experience writing threatening letters to draw upon.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Secrets of Chores
Being an engineer, I have been trained to analyze everything thoroughly. Or maybe because I am, by nature, driven to analyze everything thoroughly, I ended up in engineering. Anyway, today on I.J. Theater, we present "My Hastily Well Thought Out Theory on Doing Chores and Other Nastiness." I've also used these ideas for homework and projects at work, not just household chores.
(1) I keep it in my head that I could be called away from the chore at any moment. This adds dramatic tension, of course, keeping me focused and interested. "What will I actually get done?" It also makes me break a bigger task into little pieces. It's easier to be motivated to do a little thing like clean the top of a dresser than it is to clean an entire room. (By analogy, if I were climbing a mountain, I'd make a series of short walks to nearby landmarks rather than setting out to reach the top.) And for the nastiest chores, I can entertain myself with pleasant thoughts like "hopefully I'll be hit by a stray meteor before I have reach under that sofa." Added bonuses: (a) if I am called away, nearly no work is lost (especially important these days, since distracting children roam my environment) and (b) I get a constant stream of "task complete!" euphoric moments as I finish each teensie little piece.
(2) I can't always manage this, but if I can decide that the chore doesn't need to be done now, I can get right onto doing it. Once my little mental demon is happy that he defeated my mental angel and I don't have to do the task, he can go celebrate his victory in whatever intoxicating way he chooses and I can get to work. I kinda doubt this works if you need a deadline or other external motivator to get started.
(3) For chores that get boring because I have to do them every day or week, I try to do find a different way to do the work. When mowing, for instance, I create new patterns. I'll mow diagonally to change it up, or try a different way to mow around a tree. My aim is never to make something take longer for the sake of variety; I search for new ways to trim time and effort off the task. It keeps my novelty-seeking brain satisfied and (sometimes) gets me better ways to get the chore done.
(4) I like to make clean up part of the task. In fact, it's probably the most important part to me. I don't quite believe the statement I once made ("If you're gonna cure cancer but leave a mess, then I'd rather you just leave the cancer alone"), but I do believe you should consider cleaning as part of the deal. The most logical options are to clean up at the end of a creative task, or to clean up when you need to use the materials or space not cleaned up from before. The other option -- cleaning at some unspecified other time -- simpy leaves you another task for later. I also like to clean up when I'm tired from the work itself and don't need to be creative anymore.
(5) One of my best tricks is to do two bad chores at once. As long as I stick with task A, I'm happy that "at least I'm not doing task B." As soon as B looks better, I switch to that one. The chores really do have to be about equally bad or I'll get done with the better task, never having started the worse one.
(6) I like to figure out how to do the next chore while I'm working on the current one. It keeps my mind off what I'm doing now (I already made a plan while doing the previous chore, so my brain will have idle cycles) and gives me a plan for the next task. Once I have a plan, I feel like I've already started the next thing, so I might as well do it. I'd hate to waste the time I've already invested with all that thinking. Sometimes I'll even go start the next task before I finish the current one… but then I have to give myself a mnemonic so I remember to return to the first task (like leaving the dishwasher door open so that when I get back to the kitchen, I can return to loading it before I have even thought about what I'm doing).
(7) I usually try to start with the worst chore, that way doing the others feel like resting.
Example case: I know I'd like to clean the play area of the basement soon. I decide it doesn't have to be done today, but I might as well get started anyway. Whatever I get done will be great, but I don't have to finish. I work by sorting into everything three piles: (a) trash, (b) things I can quickly put away, and (c) things that I need to think about. Every three to five minutes I'm done with some little sorting goal (Hooray!). I handle pile (a) or (b), completing another task (Double hooray!). If I'm off putting things away, I might stop to clean a fish tank as I pass by. Or if I'm taking paper to the recycling can anyway, I might grab the newspaper pile for recycling. Whenever I quit cleaning, I'm happy because the play area looks better than when I started (nearly no "making it worse before making it better"), because I didn't need to do any of this today anyway (I'm ahead of the game), and because I got other extra chores done without even really noticing. I end my work feeling very productive, making it easier to work on the task again later.
Of course, I've left out the best way to get things done: cut all the corners! No, actually it's "delegate to others." (When it's allowed. You probably shouldn't do that with homework.)
I'd love to hear other people's ideas on this. I'm always looking for ways to improve what I'm doing.
(1) I keep it in my head that I could be called away from the chore at any moment. This adds dramatic tension, of course, keeping me focused and interested. "What will I actually get done?" It also makes me break a bigger task into little pieces. It's easier to be motivated to do a little thing like clean the top of a dresser than it is to clean an entire room. (By analogy, if I were climbing a mountain, I'd make a series of short walks to nearby landmarks rather than setting out to reach the top.) And for the nastiest chores, I can entertain myself with pleasant thoughts like "hopefully I'll be hit by a stray meteor before I have reach under that sofa." Added bonuses: (a) if I am called away, nearly no work is lost (especially important these days, since distracting children roam my environment) and (b) I get a constant stream of "task complete!" euphoric moments as I finish each teensie little piece.
(2) I can't always manage this, but if I can decide that the chore doesn't need to be done now, I can get right onto doing it. Once my little mental demon is happy that he defeated my mental angel and I don't have to do the task, he can go celebrate his victory in whatever intoxicating way he chooses and I can get to work. I kinda doubt this works if you need a deadline or other external motivator to get started.
(3) For chores that get boring because I have to do them every day or week, I try to do find a different way to do the work. When mowing, for instance, I create new patterns. I'll mow diagonally to change it up, or try a different way to mow around a tree. My aim is never to make something take longer for the sake of variety; I search for new ways to trim time and effort off the task. It keeps my novelty-seeking brain satisfied and (sometimes) gets me better ways to get the chore done.
(4) I like to make clean up part of the task. In fact, it's probably the most important part to me. I don't quite believe the statement I once made ("If you're gonna cure cancer but leave a mess, then I'd rather you just leave the cancer alone"), but I do believe you should consider cleaning as part of the deal. The most logical options are to clean up at the end of a creative task, or to clean up when you need to use the materials or space not cleaned up from before. The other option -- cleaning at some unspecified other time -- simpy leaves you another task for later. I also like to clean up when I'm tired from the work itself and don't need to be creative anymore.
(5) One of my best tricks is to do two bad chores at once. As long as I stick with task A, I'm happy that "at least I'm not doing task B." As soon as B looks better, I switch to that one. The chores really do have to be about equally bad or I'll get done with the better task, never having started the worse one.
(6) I like to figure out how to do the next chore while I'm working on the current one. It keeps my mind off what I'm doing now (I already made a plan while doing the previous chore, so my brain will have idle cycles) and gives me a plan for the next task. Once I have a plan, I feel like I've already started the next thing, so I might as well do it. I'd hate to waste the time I've already invested with all that thinking. Sometimes I'll even go start the next task before I finish the current one… but then I have to give myself a mnemonic so I remember to return to the first task (like leaving the dishwasher door open so that when I get back to the kitchen, I can return to loading it before I have even thought about what I'm doing).
(7) I usually try to start with the worst chore, that way doing the others feel like resting.
Example case: I know I'd like to clean the play area of the basement soon. I decide it doesn't have to be done today, but I might as well get started anyway. Whatever I get done will be great, but I don't have to finish. I work by sorting into everything three piles: (a) trash, (b) things I can quickly put away, and (c) things that I need to think about. Every three to five minutes I'm done with some little sorting goal (Hooray!). I handle pile (a) or (b), completing another task (Double hooray!). If I'm off putting things away, I might stop to clean a fish tank as I pass by. Or if I'm taking paper to the recycling can anyway, I might grab the newspaper pile for recycling. Whenever I quit cleaning, I'm happy because the play area looks better than when I started (nearly no "making it worse before making it better"), because I didn't need to do any of this today anyway (I'm ahead of the game), and because I got other extra chores done without even really noticing. I end my work feeling very productive, making it easier to work on the task again later.
Of course, I've left out the best way to get things done: cut all the corners! No, actually it's "delegate to others." (When it's allowed. You probably shouldn't do that with homework.)
I'd love to hear other people's ideas on this. I'm always looking for ways to improve what I'm doing.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Facebook is a problem
Facebook is going to kill me.
No, it’s not actually sucking up too much of my time. Sure, I like to check what my friends have posted 2 or 3 times a day, but I’m not one to linger there. While I might take a quick quiz if I have a few seconds to spare, I’ve never played any of the super fun addictive games Facebook offers. Facebook itself is not the problem.
What’s going to kill me is how Facebook bleeds into the rest of my life.
I keep myself busy. Oh, I realize that saying “I’m busy” is equivalent to saying “I live in 2010,” but I consciously chop out of my life anything that isn’t a top priority. Once I went to a quilt shop to buy some quilting books. “These are for my wife,” I said because I was starving for something to say, “I used to do some quilting, but I don’t have time anymore.” The sales clerk replied, “You’d have more time if you didn’t watch television.” I might’ve said something at that point, but she launched herself into an anti-television diatribe that morphed into some new topic before I was able to find any chink in the monologue. In afterthought, where I am a master of clever replies, I should’ve said, “I know it’s a waste, but I can’t bring myself to give up that half hour of TV I watch each year.”
Keeping away from TV is good for me for another reason: I am cursed with a hunger for trying out all the newest things. What I don’t know about, I can’t leap enthusiastically into.
As a Scout leader, it’s a great thing to be fascinated by the newest ideas. Or the old ideas that are new to me. Every time I see a great new skit, award ceremony, craft, opening ceremony, etc., I burn to try it out myself. That keeps my scouts (cubs and girls) interested because I’m never going to try the same thing twice… or at least not without adding some new twist.
The bad news is that I can only hold so much in my hands. There’s only so much time in each day.
When my oldest son was just over a year old, we took him to his first Easter egg hunt. The course had been set up by college students and each child was allowed to find some number of candy-filled plastic eggs. Because we were overprotective first-time parents and the terrain seemed a bit rough for our toddling little lad, my wife carried the basket for his eggs. Little F found one egg and was very happy. He insisted on holding the egg rather than putting it in the basket. Then he found a second egg. With one egg clutched in each hand, he was done and we couldn’t convince him otherwise. His hands were full; he didn’t need anything more.
I wish I could be more like that. I’m not a glutton for nearly any physical object… but I am for ideas. That’s probably why I’m in the middle of about 20 books right now.
Have me hunt for plastic eggs stuffed full of ideas and new experiences and I’m the kid with his basket, arms, and pockets full of eggs, repeatedly stooping to pick up the eggs that he dropped when trying to grab the ones he just found. If I end up punished in Hades like Sisyphus, that will be my task.
So Facebook is going to kill me because I see all the interesting things my friends are doing, and I want to do them, too. I want to read that book, listen to that music, or cook that food. I want to learn Muay Thai. I want to register with a site where I can track my reading. I want to visit Texas. I want to see that new baby animal at the zoo, volunteer my time with that group, take that Scouting training, attend a reunion, grow those plants in my garden, play that strategy game, fence with the group on Mondays, take my kids to that performance, spend more time writing fiction, train for a triatholon. I want to blog my thoughts and experiences of all these things. Facebook is a whole world of plastic eggs stuffed with ideas and new experiences… and, what’s even more tempting, people I know are trying these things. If I do them, too, I can share the experience.
And so I need more time. Lots more time. Not the measly extra few hours a day you can get by giving up eating and sleeping entirely, but an order of magnitude more time. I need 240 hours each day. Yeah, I think that’ll hold me for the next few months… probably.
Facebook is either going kill me, or finally motivate me to perfect that time machine I’ve been tinkering with in the basement.
No, it’s not actually sucking up too much of my time. Sure, I like to check what my friends have posted 2 or 3 times a day, but I’m not one to linger there. While I might take a quick quiz if I have a few seconds to spare, I’ve never played any of the super fun addictive games Facebook offers. Facebook itself is not the problem.
What’s going to kill me is how Facebook bleeds into the rest of my life.
I keep myself busy. Oh, I realize that saying “I’m busy” is equivalent to saying “I live in 2010,” but I consciously chop out of my life anything that isn’t a top priority. Once I went to a quilt shop to buy some quilting books. “These are for my wife,” I said because I was starving for something to say, “I used to do some quilting, but I don’t have time anymore.” The sales clerk replied, “You’d have more time if you didn’t watch television.” I might’ve said something at that point, but she launched herself into an anti-television diatribe that morphed into some new topic before I was able to find any chink in the monologue. In afterthought, where I am a master of clever replies, I should’ve said, “I know it’s a waste, but I can’t bring myself to give up that half hour of TV I watch each year.”
Keeping away from TV is good for me for another reason: I am cursed with a hunger for trying out all the newest things. What I don’t know about, I can’t leap enthusiastically into.
As a Scout leader, it’s a great thing to be fascinated by the newest ideas. Or the old ideas that are new to me. Every time I see a great new skit, award ceremony, craft, opening ceremony, etc., I burn to try it out myself. That keeps my scouts (cubs and girls) interested because I’m never going to try the same thing twice… or at least not without adding some new twist.
The bad news is that I can only hold so much in my hands. There’s only so much time in each day.
When my oldest son was just over a year old, we took him to his first Easter egg hunt. The course had been set up by college students and each child was allowed to find some number of candy-filled plastic eggs. Because we were overprotective first-time parents and the terrain seemed a bit rough for our toddling little lad, my wife carried the basket for his eggs. Little F found one egg and was very happy. He insisted on holding the egg rather than putting it in the basket. Then he found a second egg. With one egg clutched in each hand, he was done and we couldn’t convince him otherwise. His hands were full; he didn’t need anything more.
I wish I could be more like that. I’m not a glutton for nearly any physical object… but I am for ideas. That’s probably why I’m in the middle of about 20 books right now.
Have me hunt for plastic eggs stuffed full of ideas and new experiences and I’m the kid with his basket, arms, and pockets full of eggs, repeatedly stooping to pick up the eggs that he dropped when trying to grab the ones he just found. If I end up punished in Hades like Sisyphus, that will be my task.
So Facebook is going to kill me because I see all the interesting things my friends are doing, and I want to do them, too. I want to read that book, listen to that music, or cook that food. I want to learn Muay Thai. I want to register with a site where I can track my reading. I want to visit Texas. I want to see that new baby animal at the zoo, volunteer my time with that group, take that Scouting training, attend a reunion, grow those plants in my garden, play that strategy game, fence with the group on Mondays, take my kids to that performance, spend more time writing fiction, train for a triatholon. I want to blog my thoughts and experiences of all these things. Facebook is a whole world of plastic eggs stuffed with ideas and new experiences… and, what’s even more tempting, people I know are trying these things. If I do them, too, I can share the experience.
And so I need more time. Lots more time. Not the measly extra few hours a day you can get by giving up eating and sleeping entirely, but an order of magnitude more time. I need 240 hours each day. Yeah, I think that’ll hold me for the next few months… probably.
Facebook is either going kill me, or finally motivate me to perfect that time machine I’ve been tinkering with in the basement.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Skating lessons
Ice skating comes easy to T, most of the time. She's my most coordinated child, the one that almost always lands on her feet on those rare times that she falls. When something doesn't come easy, though, she's not always sure how to handle it. To her, everything is either "easy" or "hard." "Easy" is anything she has mastered. She has a very short memory, though, for the effort that mastery may have taken. Because of that, "hard" frequently implies "not worth my effort," unfortunately.
With ice skating, at least, my best strategy has been to have her teach me how to do the "hard" moves. It helps her because she has to concentrate on all the details well enough to tell me what to do. I'm quick with questions when she's vague and enthusiastic with my effort, so she is motivated to create a good description. By going through the same learning process she is, I gain a perspective so that we can talk about it, too. Sometimes it's just a commiseration -- "Wow, this is tough" -- but other times we can help each other when we figure out something. And, for me, I also get the added bonus of learning something new. (Yeah, I'm a life-long learner.) One of my best successes with this was T-stops, which both T and I can now do naturally.
Now, though, we're getting near the limits of what I can physically do myself. I might be able to pull off, at least in an awkward fashion, the Mohawk turn that she's trying to learn. My backwards skating is pretty weak, though... I might not be able to get it. The next level is only going to be harder. I'm going to need to learn a new strategy soon. Research, I guess...
With ice skating, at least, my best strategy has been to have her teach me how to do the "hard" moves. It helps her because she has to concentrate on all the details well enough to tell me what to do. I'm quick with questions when she's vague and enthusiastic with my effort, so she is motivated to create a good description. By going through the same learning process she is, I gain a perspective so that we can talk about it, too. Sometimes it's just a commiseration -- "Wow, this is tough" -- but other times we can help each other when we figure out something. And, for me, I also get the added bonus of learning something new. (Yeah, I'm a life-long learner.) One of my best successes with this was T-stops, which both T and I can now do naturally.
Now, though, we're getting near the limits of what I can physically do myself. I might be able to pull off, at least in an awkward fashion, the Mohawk turn that she's trying to learn. My backwards skating is pretty weak, though... I might not be able to get it. The next level is only going to be harder. I'm going to need to learn a new strategy soon. Research, I guess...
Parenting is...
Parenting is trying to prepare your children so that you can be proud of them when the world meets them. Parenting is also trying to prepare the world so that you can be proud of it when your children meet it.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
My champions
This weekend my kids and I participated in the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Maybe you saw us on TV, if they cut away to the events being held in the St. Peter's RecPlex. I was on the ice at the time, so I don't know what they actually decided to televise.)
The events for the day were figure skating, speed skating, curling, "downhill" slalom, and ice hockey. Now I'm the sort of guy who wants to try out everything, but my kids were more hesitant. F and Q were excited about trying hockey and speed skating, while T wanted to figure skate and speed skate. Every one of them stated that there was at least one event they weren't going to try. (In fact, I heard many other people say the same thing. "I'm not good that that event, so I'm staying away from it.")
I wanted to climb up on my soapbox and lecture about how you can be surprised by the amount of fun something can be even if you've never tried it before, how it's good for your mind and body to stretch into new fields, and how the modern world is saying we all need to be experts in one thing even while silently demanding, simply by the rate of its change, that we learn how to learn new things quickly. I could very easily have pontificated about how I'd love them to find something to be passionate about, but that it shouldn't exclude all other activities. Instead I simply told them that I was going to try every event.
Guess what. My kids tried every event, too. And they all had a lot of fun.
Q fell flat on his back when he tried to shoot the hockey puck after making his way through the obstacle course, but he got up laughing. He was also brave enough to be the very first figure skater. T's shot at the hockey net went wide, but she caught the rebound off the boards and had a great big smile when she shot it into a lower corner. F's slide across the ice for the final pose for his figure skating routine was copied by some of the next skaters. They all skated the slalom, raced around the short track, and slid the big curling stones across the ice. Each of them stood on the awards platform, having tried every event the RecPlex offered.
To me, that makes them all champions… even if I did totally outscore every single one of them in curling.
The events for the day were figure skating, speed skating, curling, "downhill" slalom, and ice hockey. Now I'm the sort of guy who wants to try out everything, but my kids were more hesitant. F and Q were excited about trying hockey and speed skating, while T wanted to figure skate and speed skate. Every one of them stated that there was at least one event they weren't going to try. (In fact, I heard many other people say the same thing. "I'm not good that that event, so I'm staying away from it.")
I wanted to climb up on my soapbox and lecture about how you can be surprised by the amount of fun something can be even if you've never tried it before, how it's good for your mind and body to stretch into new fields, and how the modern world is saying we all need to be experts in one thing even while silently demanding, simply by the rate of its change, that we learn how to learn new things quickly. I could very easily have pontificated about how I'd love them to find something to be passionate about, but that it shouldn't exclude all other activities. Instead I simply told them that I was going to try every event.
Guess what. My kids tried every event, too. And they all had a lot of fun.
Q fell flat on his back when he tried to shoot the hockey puck after making his way through the obstacle course, but he got up laughing. He was also brave enough to be the very first figure skater. T's shot at the hockey net went wide, but she caught the rebound off the boards and had a great big smile when she shot it into a lower corner. F's slide across the ice for the final pose for his figure skating routine was copied by some of the next skaters. They all skated the slalom, raced around the short track, and slid the big curling stones across the ice. Each of them stood on the awards platform, having tried every event the RecPlex offered.
To me, that makes them all champions… even if I did totally outscore every single one of them in curling.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Know Myself
A creek. One little boy jumps from rock to rock. His father does the same. His mother approaches another little boy, the slightly older brother. “Why aren’t you playing anymore?” “You said not to get our shoes wet!” the boy points at a shoe with a wet toe. “Oh, go play! I just meant you should be careful.”
I was the little boy ever so happy to be allowed to go back to jumping over the flowing water.
My mom says she should’ve realized earlier that she didn’t really need to caution me about anything. Yet she continued to do so. A few years later, when I started first grade, she told me “Come straight home after school. You cannot play; you must come home.” That turned out to be an unfortunate choice of words. Partway through the morning, my teacher told us to line up. It was recess time, but she said “We’re going outside to play.” That was another unfortunate choice of words. I grabbed my bookbag. While my class walked toward the playground, I ducked out of line and started home. It seemed strange that the crossing guard wasn’t at her place, but I looked both ways and crossed the busy street. I was nearly halfway home when a sudden thought struck me: I’d forgotten my lunchbox. I ran back to the school. In trying to get back into my classroom, I was discovered by another teacher who escorted me, despite my protests that my mother did not allow me to play, to my class.
So I sound like a definite rules-follower, right? For years, I ignored the evidence to the contrary. My mother’s #1 rule about walking to school was to never ever enter the bar at the corner, yet in second grade when my friend Mike wanted to go in there to buy licorice – he was hesitant to go alone – I went with him. More than once. How could I do something like that? I mean, I’m a rules-follower.
Can a person hold two contradictory ideas in their head at the same time, believing both? I profess a belief that there are no rules, only guidelines. Yet I still label myself as a rules-follower. That doesn’t make sense. I believe rules are semi-optional, yet I follow the rules nearly all the time. Only “nearly,” though. Once or twice a year, I shatter a rule or cultural norm, but then kind of forget about it. “I nearly never…” I know from engineering that the problem that nearly never happens is nearly impossible to track down.
Finally – recently – I quit ignoring the times that I broke rules and really looked at them. Was there some similarity between them? It turned out there was. In every case, I chose the happiness of someone else over the rule. In nearly all of the recent examples, it was something for one of my children. The mystery is solved: I’m a people pleaser, not a rule follower. I want to make other people happy, and if that means breaking a rule, so be it. I probably didn’t need to learn the motto of my high school – “Men for others” – because I came from the factory pre-programmed with that idea.
Self-knowledge is always good. Now that I realize what I’m doing, I can weigh the situation better. When I feel a rule going gray, I can try look for who I’m trying to please and see if it’s really worth breaking the rule. My guess is that the result will be about the same – that I’ll continue to weight the happiness of the person over the impersonal rule – but I could be wrong. At least I’ll realize when I’m making a dangerous jump off a rock-solid rule and won’t be surprised if my shoes get wet.
I was the little boy ever so happy to be allowed to go back to jumping over the flowing water.
My mom says she should’ve realized earlier that she didn’t really need to caution me about anything. Yet she continued to do so. A few years later, when I started first grade, she told me “Come straight home after school. You cannot play; you must come home.” That turned out to be an unfortunate choice of words. Partway through the morning, my teacher told us to line up. It was recess time, but she said “We’re going outside to play.” That was another unfortunate choice of words. I grabbed my bookbag. While my class walked toward the playground, I ducked out of line and started home. It seemed strange that the crossing guard wasn’t at her place, but I looked both ways and crossed the busy street. I was nearly halfway home when a sudden thought struck me: I’d forgotten my lunchbox. I ran back to the school. In trying to get back into my classroom, I was discovered by another teacher who escorted me, despite my protests that my mother did not allow me to play, to my class.
So I sound like a definite rules-follower, right? For years, I ignored the evidence to the contrary. My mother’s #1 rule about walking to school was to never ever enter the bar at the corner, yet in second grade when my friend Mike wanted to go in there to buy licorice – he was hesitant to go alone – I went with him. More than once. How could I do something like that? I mean, I’m a rules-follower.
Can a person hold two contradictory ideas in their head at the same time, believing both? I profess a belief that there are no rules, only guidelines. Yet I still label myself as a rules-follower. That doesn’t make sense. I believe rules are semi-optional, yet I follow the rules nearly all the time. Only “nearly,” though. Once or twice a year, I shatter a rule or cultural norm, but then kind of forget about it. “I nearly never…” I know from engineering that the problem that nearly never happens is nearly impossible to track down.
Finally – recently – I quit ignoring the times that I broke rules and really looked at them. Was there some similarity between them? It turned out there was. In every case, I chose the happiness of someone else over the rule. In nearly all of the recent examples, it was something for one of my children. The mystery is solved: I’m a people pleaser, not a rule follower. I want to make other people happy, and if that means breaking a rule, so be it. I probably didn’t need to learn the motto of my high school – “Men for others” – because I came from the factory pre-programmed with that idea.
Self-knowledge is always good. Now that I realize what I’m doing, I can weigh the situation better. When I feel a rule going gray, I can try look for who I’m trying to please and see if it’s really worth breaking the rule. My guess is that the result will be about the same – that I’ll continue to weight the happiness of the person over the impersonal rule – but I could be wrong. At least I’ll realize when I’m making a dangerous jump off a rock-solid rule and won’t be surprised if my shoes get wet.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Thank you for your generous donation
“… if you would help us by sending notes to your family members and friends, asking them to help support our cause? We are sending out drive kits in January.” “Sure,” I said, “Let’s do that.”
Now, I know how this conversation is supposed to go. Someone asks me to volunteer my time and I say I’m busy. Next thay ask me to make a donation from one of these fantastic levels with fancy names like “Gold level: $150,” “Supreme benefactor: $100,” or “Adequately involved: $25.” If I hesitate, thay say “Or whatever you can afford. Many people are donating just $10. Any amount helps…” That’s usually the point where I make a decision: I pick some number that feels reasonable, or else I resolve to wait tham out. I’m too polite to hang up first (even though I know it happens to tham all the time and that by cutting off the conversation early, I’m saving tham time and effort... I still can’t just hang up on anybody). If I choose to wait tham out, I respond to everything pleasantly but negatively. I’ve never changed my mind during thair endgame.
Waiting for the phone solicitor to give up takes time. A lot of them are surprisingly persistent. When I’m too busy for the series of rewordings of the same basic plea, I choose some amount to donate (“Any amount helps…”) and request whatever option is fastest. (“Please send me a reminder letter so I can try to get matching funds from my employer” works well.) Even busier? I’ll choose the “brass level” or “adequately involved” as soon as they name it.
So when the Alzheimer’s Association representative called in early October, she caught me at a busy time… so busy that I was actually tempted to hang up on her. She said, “We are sending out drive kits in January,” and I thought:
My kit actually arrived in late December. As I struggled to decide who I could possibly send these requests out to and what in heaven’s name I could write that wouldn’t make it sound like I was asking for money when I asked for money and why did I ever volunteer for this in the first place, I remembered that I’d rather discuss loss of control of bodily functions than money. I don’t ask people for money. I don’t even like to sell things; I’d much rather just give them away. I hate the question “How much did you pay for that?” So how was I going to appeal to people for… money?
In the end, I wrote “Anything you can do will be great!” (notice that I didn’t even mention money) and sent these things out to parents and siblings (my own and –in-law) and a few of my closest friends. I never mentioned the requests in person, just let the letters speak for themselves. I received a good number of replies and the number of people I became estranged from is actually very small.
Will I do it again? Probably not. I’ll spend the rest of my life with residual stress about whether I offended anyone by asking for donations. Maybe, since I know the routine, I’d be slightly more likely to volunteer my time, but only if I could think of a number of family and friends I wouldn’t mind losing. That means I’d have to get some new peeps, because I really like all of my current ones. Also, the mystery is gone. I’ve been disillusioned of my idea that I might get to hear the person say, “Oh, no! Nobody says they’ll help here. My script just ends!!”
Now, I know how this conversation is supposed to go. Someone asks me to volunteer my time and I say I’m busy. Next thay ask me to make a donation from one of these fantastic levels with fancy names like “Gold level: $150,” “Supreme benefactor: $100,” or “Adequately involved: $25.” If I hesitate, thay say “Or whatever you can afford. Many people are donating just $10. Any amount helps…” That’s usually the point where I make a decision: I pick some number that feels reasonable, or else I resolve to wait tham out. I’m too polite to hang up first (even though I know it happens to tham all the time and that by cutting off the conversation early, I’m saving tham time and effort... I still can’t just hang up on anybody). If I choose to wait tham out, I respond to everything pleasantly but negatively. I’ve never changed my mind during thair endgame.
Waiting for the phone solicitor to give up takes time. A lot of them are surprisingly persistent. When I’m too busy for the series of rewordings of the same basic plea, I choose some amount to donate (“Any amount helps…”) and request whatever option is fastest. (“Please send me a reminder letter so I can try to get matching funds from my employer” works well.) Even busier? I’ll choose the “brass level” or “adequately involved” as soon as they name it.
So when the Alzheimer’s Association representative called in early October, she caught me at a busy time… so busy that I was actually tempted to hang up on her. She said, “We are sending out drive kits in January,” and I thought:
- If I say “yes,” we’ll be done. That’d be great.
- Hey, I’ve never said “yes” here before. I wonder what happens on this path.
- January is forever away. I could be hit by a bus before then and not have to do it.
- Does anybody say “yes” here? I’ll bet she’ll have to check with her manager or something to find out what to do. Maybe she’ll say “Okay, you’ve my bluff. We don’t actually have a program like that. Can you just donate some money?”
- If I say “yes,” we’ll be done.
- Can I really ask people for money?!?
- Remember “Still Alice?” Alzheimer’s is one of the worst things ever. Maybe they can wipe it out. These are the people trying to find a cure.
- If I say “yes,” we’ll be done.
My kit actually arrived in late December. As I struggled to decide who I could possibly send these requests out to and what in heaven’s name I could write that wouldn’t make it sound like I was asking for money when I asked for money and why did I ever volunteer for this in the first place, I remembered that I’d rather discuss loss of control of bodily functions than money. I don’t ask people for money. I don’t even like to sell things; I’d much rather just give them away. I hate the question “How much did you pay for that?” So how was I going to appeal to people for… money?
In the end, I wrote “Anything you can do will be great!” (notice that I didn’t even mention money) and sent these things out to parents and siblings (my own and –in-law) and a few of my closest friends. I never mentioned the requests in person, just let the letters speak for themselves. I received a good number of replies and the number of people I became estranged from is actually very small.
Will I do it again? Probably not. I’ll spend the rest of my life with residual stress about whether I offended anyone by asking for donations. Maybe, since I know the routine, I’d be slightly more likely to volunteer my time, but only if I could think of a number of family and friends I wouldn’t mind losing. That means I’d have to get some new peeps, because I really like all of my current ones. Also, the mystery is gone. I’ve been disillusioned of my idea that I might get to hear the person say, “Oh, no! Nobody says they’ll help here. My script just ends!!”
Friday, February 12, 2010
New pronouns found
Scientists this week have announced the discovery of a previously unsuspected family of words in the English language: non-gender-specific, third-person singular pronouns. “At first, we thought they were just an aberrant form of the common third person plural,” one spokesperson stated, “and when we realized it wasn’t, we just started chuckling… all of is in the lab, just chuckling away.”
Theorists have long posited the existence of such a class of pronouns, citing examples from other languages, but until recently the evidence was sketchy at best. During the past century no less than 5 separate reports have been made of sightings, but none have withstood popular scrutiny. Some worry that the most recent announcement will also prove overly optimistic. “No way,” our on-site correspondent says, “This time, they have done it.”
The newly discovered pronouns – thay, thair, tham, and thamself – differ from previously reported examples because these are words people are already using. “People are already doing the correct thing. The average person already uses these words without even realizing what thay are doing. Thay may not be spelling these words quite right, but the standard American reads them and says them.”
Scientists recommend that everyone update thair spell checker to accept these useful words. “If you are using a hard-copy dictionary,” a government auditor says, “then write these words in there yourself.” Expect to hear these words – thay, thair, tham, and thamself – coming from the mouths of celebrities. “Eventually even the dullest Americans will be saying things like ‘My friend is gonna loan me thair car, if thay can’t give me a ride thamself,’ but look to the hip people to be first to get this right.”
“I’m going to make the change immediately,” the lab spokesperson says, “I’m going to buy my kid a new dictionary, too. I want tham to learn the language right.”
Theorists have long posited the existence of such a class of pronouns, citing examples from other languages, but until recently the evidence was sketchy at best. During the past century no less than 5 separate reports have been made of sightings, but none have withstood popular scrutiny. Some worry that the most recent announcement will also prove overly optimistic. “No way,” our on-site correspondent says, “This time, they have done it.”
The newly discovered pronouns – thay, thair, tham, and thamself – differ from previously reported examples because these are words people are already using. “People are already doing the correct thing. The average person already uses these words without even realizing what thay are doing. Thay may not be spelling these words quite right, but the standard American reads them and says them.”
Scientists recommend that everyone update thair spell checker to accept these useful words. “If you are using a hard-copy dictionary,” a government auditor says, “then write these words in there yourself.” Expect to hear these words – thay, thair, tham, and thamself – coming from the mouths of celebrities. “Eventually even the dullest Americans will be saying things like ‘My friend is gonna loan me thair car, if thay can’t give me a ride thamself,’ but look to the hip people to be first to get this right.”
“I’m going to make the change immediately,” the lab spokesperson says, “I’m going to buy my kid a new dictionary, too. I want tham to learn the language right.”
Friday, January 29, 2010
A big project
I've been thinking about blogging -- about my blog -- and it seems to me that everyone should have a project to work on. A big project, like a blog, really gives a lot of meaning to life. Projects aren't just for individual people either. A big St. Louis Arch or even massive Ozymandias-style sculpture can really unite a community. A big enough project can unite an organization, a nation... even a planet. Honestly, the survival of the group depends on having a long range goal. Day-to-day affairs like taking out the trash so that breathing remains fun, electing honorable treasurers to that the group fund embezzlement ceases, and setting CEO salaries so that lavish lifestyles continue are all necessary, but these don't inspire; instead they often divide a group. A long range goal keeps the whole group whole.
Yes, people can be divided against themselves. I want to watch TV, I need to finish my homework, I need to clean the bathroom, I ran out of clean underwear late last week, my boss wants this typed up by at 3:15 pm at the latest, unless magic elves have refilled the refrigerator I can't eat dinner until I shop, this novel is three weeks overdue at the library and I'm not even halfway through it, I need a nap! These little projects all peck away at the fun parts of life. They can hypnotize you, steal away your motivation, and leave you as a sad and deflated balloon on the floor of life. A big long term project like crafting a quilt, writing a novel, or rebuilding a 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 makes the rest of life worthwhile.
A big inspiring project becomes the focal point of your life. Suddenly the drudgery of dishwashing offers free mental time for developing the first sentence of the next chapter. Time waiting for the spouse to place each hair in perfect position becomes an opportunity to look over the engine block. Soaking in the rays of the television's light can be accompanied by cutting strips of fabric. Suddenly the little hassles go undetectable. The long road seems so much smoother when your eyes are on the distant monument.
Big is the key. Inspiring. The key is to withhold gratification and persevere at a lengthy but enjoyable project. Fanatically cheering for a sporting team can have a similar effect, but it doesn't allow for everyone to put effort toward the task. Spectators are good, but the more people involved in the task, the easier it is to keep interest and support.
Organizations fall apart when there work is complete. Look at the Federalists: their purpose was to get the United States Constitution accepted. That complete... they didn't have anything to hold them together. Disintegration.
Look at Athens versus Sparta. Athens was this wonderful democracy where everyone was at least tolerably content. Sparta had nothing but a long-term project: military power. Every aspect of Spartan society was directed toward that goal. Their happiness may be debatable, but everyone knew they were helping toward a big project.
Wars, like sports, unite, but they also bring their own problems. The modern world leaves a lot less room for the noble war that everyone will stand behind. Choosing a war as your binding element can be risky: what if you lose? Even worse (or better?!?), wars must end eventually. I'm guessing that the Hundred Years war didn't feature a lot of cheering to the yell "We're gonna win this one" after a few generations of battle.
For better ideas, look at the Apollo Project. "A man on the moon." Okay, it was sort of a race, but it had a lot of the "us against ourselves" element that makes the best group project. If you're asking "Can we really achieve this?" and answering "I bet we can!" then you've found a great project.
What this planet really needs is a big wonderful inspiring project. A world quilt (probably figuratively rather than literally) that we can all help build or knit. Something difficult, yet possible, that will produce something wonderful. Something we can all dream about... together.
Yes, people can be divided against themselves. I want to watch TV, I need to finish my homework, I need to clean the bathroom, I ran out of clean underwear late last week, my boss wants this typed up by at 3:15 pm at the latest, unless magic elves have refilled the refrigerator I can't eat dinner until I shop, this novel is three weeks overdue at the library and I'm not even halfway through it, I need a nap! These little projects all peck away at the fun parts of life. They can hypnotize you, steal away your motivation, and leave you as a sad and deflated balloon on the floor of life. A big long term project like crafting a quilt, writing a novel, or rebuilding a 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 makes the rest of life worthwhile.
A big inspiring project becomes the focal point of your life. Suddenly the drudgery of dishwashing offers free mental time for developing the first sentence of the next chapter. Time waiting for the spouse to place each hair in perfect position becomes an opportunity to look over the engine block. Soaking in the rays of the television's light can be accompanied by cutting strips of fabric. Suddenly the little hassles go undetectable. The long road seems so much smoother when your eyes are on the distant monument.
Big is the key. Inspiring. The key is to withhold gratification and persevere at a lengthy but enjoyable project. Fanatically cheering for a sporting team can have a similar effect, but it doesn't allow for everyone to put effort toward the task. Spectators are good, but the more people involved in the task, the easier it is to keep interest and support.
Organizations fall apart when there work is complete. Look at the Federalists: their purpose was to get the United States Constitution accepted. That complete... they didn't have anything to hold them together. Disintegration.
Look at Athens versus Sparta. Athens was this wonderful democracy where everyone was at least tolerably content. Sparta had nothing but a long-term project: military power. Every aspect of Spartan society was directed toward that goal. Their happiness may be debatable, but everyone knew they were helping toward a big project.
Wars, like sports, unite, but they also bring their own problems. The modern world leaves a lot less room for the noble war that everyone will stand behind. Choosing a war as your binding element can be risky: what if you lose? Even worse (or better?!?), wars must end eventually. I'm guessing that the Hundred Years war didn't feature a lot of cheering to the yell "We're gonna win this one" after a few generations of battle.
For better ideas, look at the Apollo Project. "A man on the moon." Okay, it was sort of a race, but it had a lot of the "us against ourselves" element that makes the best group project. If you're asking "Can we really achieve this?" and answering "I bet we can!" then you've found a great project.
What this planet really needs is a big wonderful inspiring project. A world quilt (probably figuratively rather than literally) that we can all help build or knit. Something difficult, yet possible, that will produce something wonderful. Something we can all dream about... together.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Undo
Isn’t it about time for the capabilities of computer technology to cross over into reality? Take the search function: I want that for everyday conversation. While my brain is quite able to recall that a great quote or story exists, I know that it never seems to reproduce the exact wording. I’ve learned that my best guess is usually pretty poor. When I’m writing, I might have the leisure to search for the quote; but again, my brain may have no idea where I actually saw it in the first place. “It was on a web page with a blue background” – frequently the best it can manage – is a bit lacking in useful details. I want those computer designer people to offer me a way to search all the winding caverns of my mind for those details that are shoved in there somewhere. I know the information is there because a couple hours (or days) later, when the moment is long gone, my brain will rush up with tail wagging and drop the exact location at my feet.
I’d be happy with many other useful computer commands – spell check, cut and paste, find all – but the one I want most is “undo.”
Trial and error is my way of life. Sure, I do research and development in engineering as a career, so I’m trained in that sort of thing, but I’ve been into trial and error since I was young. When I was old enough to wander around Six Flags by myself, I developed my own strategy for getting around the park. Instead of holding a map and trying to match it to the park, I preferred to rush from one “You are here” sign to the next. If I went in the wrong direction, I could tell right away and correct my course. Given a choice, I’ll think while I’m acting rather than before. I don’t mind correcting my course on the way… but I want to be in motion.
The biggest problem with trial and error is that whole error part. Big bad errors usually don’t have an “undo” ability in the real world.
On Friday night, we ate dinner out. I didn’t notice the specials of the day – in particular a chicken with spicy tomatilla sauce – until after I’d placed my order. If I’d had a free “undo” function, I would have used it then. Rewind a couple minutes and order again. “Undo” would be nice for trivial mistakes like that.
Even with a little bit of a cost, “undo” would be awesome for those moments where I misjudged someone’s thoughts or didn’t take the time to think my words though and saw, even as the words were emerging, that I was offending my audience. Words of apology are more of a bandage than a miraculous healing. It would be so much better to make the moment never to have happened. For a low price, I’d use an “undo” to clear up those mistakes.
There are moments, though, when I would give anything to have an “undo.”
“Is anyone down here?” T called from the top of the stairs. “No, I don’t see anyone,” I replied from the basement. I should’ve known there was a problem when she said, “Daddy, stop being silly.” If I hadn’t been moving laundry from the washing machine, standing with my back to her, I would’ve seen her red eyes and thin lips. But I didn’t until after she continued: “Daddy, I don’t know where my DS is!”
Each year, Santa wraps each child’s big present in gold paper. You know when you’re opening your special present. T’s DS was her gold present this year. For her birthday, just this past Tuesday, she’d gotten a new game for it, a charger, and a cute little blue case. She’d been taking pictures with the DS since the hour it arrived, but we had just figured out how to get them onto the computer. She takes her Brain Age test daily, and has spent a lot of time personalizing everything. When her brothers ignore her too much, she’s as likely to go play DS as read, these days. And because her DS is important to her, she likes to carry it wherever she goes.
Saturday morning, T brought her DS to a fundraiser breakfast at Applebee’s. When we had all gone to load plates with pancakes, I had covered her DS case with her coat, leaving just a corner sticking out. It seemed prudent. That turned out to be the last time anyone saw it.
Right after T announced the loss, my wife got the phone book out, but T and I got in the car instead, coatless despite the cold. Thinking while acting is what I do. We drove. When we were nearly to Applebee’s, I had T call home. No success with Mommy’s phone calls. We’d have to find the DS in person, if we were going to find it at all.
The Applebee’s people were great, and the table we’d been at was unoccupied. T crawled all over the floor in her search, but there was nowhere for her DS to be hidden. It wasn’t there. I couldn’t look at T’s eyes as she started sobbing, so I hugged her to me and tried not to choke as I gave the Applebee’s employee our phone number and a description. T calmed enough to tell him her user name and the message and every detail of her loved DS. The guy suggested we contact the fundraiser organizers; they might have picked it up. “I’ve seen it happen before…”
I carried T out to the van… I’m not sure she could see clearly.
As we started pulling away, T cried, “I forgot to tell him that the box around my user name is pink. It’s a pink box!” Maybe if she described every detail perfectly, it would reappear.
I know that lost game systems don’t reappear. Once they are gone… well, I couldn’t tell T that no amount of longing makes them return. And I blamed myself, partly for covering the DS instead of picking it up, partly for not making her leave it in the van.
I so would’ve pressed “undo” then. I would have clicked back and back even if the price was years off my own life.
Back home, we all sat on the floor and T cried. I couldn’t even speak, there was nothing useful to say. I just sat with her.
The story ends well: after some phone calls, we found T’s DS in the hands of the fundraiser people. This evening we picked it up; it has returned. T has learned a lesson about responsibility, too, without consequences too painful to bear. She’s wiser now, having experienced loss. I would have spared her all of those lessons if I could’ve, which probably wouldn’t be in her best interest.
If we could “undo” too many events, I suppose that personal responsibility would suffer. It would probably be worse than the video game “restart that game” mentality. But to the good, it would encourage creativity, especially of the trial-and-error variety. I’ve decided that life should have a training mode, where we can learn our limits, develop responsibility, and suffer only token pain. What we all need is a training mode.
I just realized that my role, as T’s parent, is to shelter her, partly, from this unforgiving reality where we live. I need to be the computer designer guy. Imperfect as I am, I’m her “undo” function, to the best of my ability.
I’d be happy with many other useful computer commands – spell check, cut and paste, find all – but the one I want most is “undo.”
Trial and error is my way of life. Sure, I do research and development in engineering as a career, so I’m trained in that sort of thing, but I’ve been into trial and error since I was young. When I was old enough to wander around Six Flags by myself, I developed my own strategy for getting around the park. Instead of holding a map and trying to match it to the park, I preferred to rush from one “You are here” sign to the next. If I went in the wrong direction, I could tell right away and correct my course. Given a choice, I’ll think while I’m acting rather than before. I don’t mind correcting my course on the way… but I want to be in motion.
The biggest problem with trial and error is that whole error part. Big bad errors usually don’t have an “undo” ability in the real world.
On Friday night, we ate dinner out. I didn’t notice the specials of the day – in particular a chicken with spicy tomatilla sauce – until after I’d placed my order. If I’d had a free “undo” function, I would have used it then. Rewind a couple minutes and order again. “Undo” would be nice for trivial mistakes like that.
Even with a little bit of a cost, “undo” would be awesome for those moments where I misjudged someone’s thoughts or didn’t take the time to think my words though and saw, even as the words were emerging, that I was offending my audience. Words of apology are more of a bandage than a miraculous healing. It would be so much better to make the moment never to have happened. For a low price, I’d use an “undo” to clear up those mistakes.
There are moments, though, when I would give anything to have an “undo.”
“Is anyone down here?” T called from the top of the stairs. “No, I don’t see anyone,” I replied from the basement. I should’ve known there was a problem when she said, “Daddy, stop being silly.” If I hadn’t been moving laundry from the washing machine, standing with my back to her, I would’ve seen her red eyes and thin lips. But I didn’t until after she continued: “Daddy, I don’t know where my DS is!”
Each year, Santa wraps each child’s big present in gold paper. You know when you’re opening your special present. T’s DS was her gold present this year. For her birthday, just this past Tuesday, she’d gotten a new game for it, a charger, and a cute little blue case. She’d been taking pictures with the DS since the hour it arrived, but we had just figured out how to get them onto the computer. She takes her Brain Age test daily, and has spent a lot of time personalizing everything. When her brothers ignore her too much, she’s as likely to go play DS as read, these days. And because her DS is important to her, she likes to carry it wherever she goes.
Saturday morning, T brought her DS to a fundraiser breakfast at Applebee’s. When we had all gone to load plates with pancakes, I had covered her DS case with her coat, leaving just a corner sticking out. It seemed prudent. That turned out to be the last time anyone saw it.
Right after T announced the loss, my wife got the phone book out, but T and I got in the car instead, coatless despite the cold. Thinking while acting is what I do. We drove. When we were nearly to Applebee’s, I had T call home. No success with Mommy’s phone calls. We’d have to find the DS in person, if we were going to find it at all.
The Applebee’s people were great, and the table we’d been at was unoccupied. T crawled all over the floor in her search, but there was nowhere for her DS to be hidden. It wasn’t there. I couldn’t look at T’s eyes as she started sobbing, so I hugged her to me and tried not to choke as I gave the Applebee’s employee our phone number and a description. T calmed enough to tell him her user name and the message and every detail of her loved DS. The guy suggested we contact the fundraiser organizers; they might have picked it up. “I’ve seen it happen before…”
I carried T out to the van… I’m not sure she could see clearly.
As we started pulling away, T cried, “I forgot to tell him that the box around my user name is pink. It’s a pink box!” Maybe if she described every detail perfectly, it would reappear.
I know that lost game systems don’t reappear. Once they are gone… well, I couldn’t tell T that no amount of longing makes them return. And I blamed myself, partly for covering the DS instead of picking it up, partly for not making her leave it in the van.
I so would’ve pressed “undo” then. I would have clicked back and back even if the price was years off my own life.
Back home, we all sat on the floor and T cried. I couldn’t even speak, there was nothing useful to say. I just sat with her.
The story ends well: after some phone calls, we found T’s DS in the hands of the fundraiser people. This evening we picked it up; it has returned. T has learned a lesson about responsibility, too, without consequences too painful to bear. She’s wiser now, having experienced loss. I would have spared her all of those lessons if I could’ve, which probably wouldn’t be in her best interest.
If we could “undo” too many events, I suppose that personal responsibility would suffer. It would probably be worse than the video game “restart that game” mentality. But to the good, it would encourage creativity, especially of the trial-and-error variety. I’ve decided that life should have a training mode, where we can learn our limits, develop responsibility, and suffer only token pain. What we all need is a training mode.
I just realized that my role, as T’s parent, is to shelter her, partly, from this unforgiving reality where we live. I need to be the computer designer guy. Imperfect as I am, I’m her “undo” function, to the best of my ability.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Be a grammarbuilder
Dude, I'm never gonna be a grammar snob. I'm all about experimental grammatics. Try out new ideas, I say. Do the extreme grammar thing. I mean, without some kinda deconstruction and experimentation, we're gonna end up with a dead and rotting language… I get that. I'm never gonna go all Samuel Johnson on you. (Note: Dr. Johnson is the guy to blame for the idea that English should be a stable museum piece of a language. Before he stapled down the rules, spelling was more like a game everyone could play.) But but but you gotta know what it is that you're doing or you'll end up misunderstood. Just like if you go bench 200 lbs without working up to it -- you'll strain a tendon, or even get your rib cage squashed -- so it is with grammar. You gotta build up to the tough stuff. Work out; be strong.
The internet totally rules as a place to get your grammar on: Facebook, blogs, mySpace, all of that. Fly your new punctuation and a gazillion people might go gliding along behind you. You can get instant feedback from the neighbors, from Neverland, and from anywhere in between. To make this the grammar-Eden it could be, we need people to have the right attitudes: people understanding how much words matter. And what's the only way to change attitudes, you ask. Viral campaigns, I shout back. Toss these phrases at your retinas.
Be grammar strong with tight sentences, bold punctuation, and clean spelling. Be understood.
Check out my tight sentence structure. I'm a grammarbuilder.
My punctuation is totally ripped. I'm a grammarbuilder.
Be kind to others: keep your flabby grammar hidden.
Keep your grammar taut, even on Facebook. Grammar builders.
Without my daily workout, I'd be a grammar-wuss.
Get a load of these grammar-guns.
People, we have to spatter the Internet with sayings like these and get grammar cool again. Or hot. Whatever means "totally rockin'" in your lingo. Go forth and grammar-ply.
(Wow, in my teen years I'd've never guessed that I'd be slopping out a foundation for an English-wide grammar movement, but here I am today doing just that.)
The internet totally rules as a place to get your grammar on: Facebook, blogs, mySpace, all of that. Fly your new punctuation and a gazillion people might go gliding along behind you. You can get instant feedback from the neighbors, from Neverland, and from anywhere in between. To make this the grammar-Eden it could be, we need people to have the right attitudes: people understanding how much words matter. And what's the only way to change attitudes, you ask. Viral campaigns, I shout back. Toss these phrases at your retinas.
Be grammar strong with tight sentences, bold punctuation, and clean spelling. Be understood.
Check out my tight sentence structure. I'm a grammarbuilder.
My punctuation is totally ripped. I'm a grammarbuilder.
Be kind to others: keep your flabby grammar hidden.
Keep your grammar taut, even on Facebook. Grammar builders.
Without my daily workout, I'd be a grammar-wuss.
Get a load of these grammar-guns.
People, we have to spatter the Internet with sayings like these and get grammar cool again. Or hot. Whatever means "totally rockin'" in your lingo. Go forth and grammar-ply.
(Wow, in my teen years I'd've never guessed that I'd be slopping out a foundation for an English-wide grammar movement, but here I am today doing just that.)
Monday, January 18, 2010
To Read or Not To Read
Once upon a time, for a little less than two years, I was the father of only one child. Dear F was the center of my life and, while it was in no way a carefree existence, I did not have to spend time debating certain decisions. If a conflict arose between what would be best for Fox and what would be best for me, well, F won. F wants the last muffin, F gets the last muffin.
Then came T…
Then came Q…
Part of our bedtime ritual is “the reading of the picture books” followed by “the reading of the chapter books.” When the children were little, they each chose two picture books and I would read Q’s first (shortest attention span), the T’s, and finally F’s and then finish with the chapter book that I chose myself. Easy as… except F decided that this wasn’t really fair (children are great at measuring fairness. I wonder if a system of teaching mathematics at schools – even up through calculus – could be built upon this ability) and so we devised a new household order: Q’s books were first one night, then T’s the next, and then F’s the next. The good news about this complicated system was that the children themselves kept track of whose turn came next and rigidly enforced it. (In fact, having 3 or more children made this easier. If only 2 were involved, I’m guessing that they’d both remember it was their turn every night.)
Now that the children are ever so much older and more mature, they squabble about chapter books instead of picture books. I choose the picture books and parts of my audience come and go as they please. Picture book time is mostly Q’s time these days. Chapter books, though, are selected by the children in turn. All problems solved? Naïve thinking, that. F developed a strategy of choosing the longest book possible, to maximize the time with “his” book. Then T started doing that, too, and soon both were deviously encouraging Q to choose the shortest chapter books they could find. With the advent of self-reading, though, this has mostly faded: a child uninterested in the current book can read a book to him or herself instead.
… except Q isn’t quite that far along yet. He can read short chapter books very well on his own, but the larger ones are still insurmountable. I expect by the end of the summer – at least by Christmas -- he’ll be able to read any book he wants and then tough chapter book dilemmas will be no more.
So today’s may be the last.
Q loves the “Eragon” book series. When he won a gift certificate to a book store from a drawing a couple years ago, he wanted the entire Eragon series. The third book was on the verge of being released and so we had him wait a month or two (no small feat) so that he could get the entire trilogy in one box set. Except when we finished the third book we found out that the series had expanded to four books. The fourth book is coming out soon… or eventually, anyway.
Everyone in my family knows that the best preparation for the release of a new book in a favorite series is to reread the most recent book… better is to reread the whole series. Especially if you were young and don’t remember all the details of your favorite series, which explains why Q wants to hear all three Eragon books again: his next three choices for chapter books.
Now there’s no hard rule against picking books we’ve already heard, but… well, it just isn’t done. There’s only so much group reading time – about 45 minutes a night – and to start repeating books is an insult the other people involved. And really large books, like every book in the Eragon series (over two months to read, each), aren’t quite subject to a veto, but…
So Q’s request is reasonable and backed up by the experience of everyone else in the family, yet it also goes against multiple unwritten rules of our tradition. He is not maliciously choosing something to annoy the others. He can’t read the book himself. Yet it sets his desires against the desires of the two others.
I can see why there’s an underground movement to make King Solomon the patron saint of parents and parenting-related decisions.
My decision isn’t totally made yet, which is unfortunate because we’re finishing T’s book after about 10 minutes of reading tonight. I’m probably going to read “Eragon” (and fend off complaints against unfairness with “He can’t read it himself” and “We read this one a long time ago.”) and rather hope that Q finds another book before we move onto the next one. I expect F and T to retaliate with long books for their next choices… maybe even books we’ve read before. (T’s likely to choose “Twilight”, for example. Oh, I might be able to counter that by offering to read “Eclipse,” saying that Q is old enough to hear it because he will be 8 by then…).
Maybe this is a minor decision, but it still pits the desires of one child against the desires of another. And other decisions will come along: in June, F’s Boy Scout summer camp, which I try to attend, is the same week as Q’s Cub Scout Day camp, which I try to attend. As they get older, the decisions seem more important, too.
Some things were easier once upon a time.
Then came T…
Then came Q…
Part of our bedtime ritual is “the reading of the picture books” followed by “the reading of the chapter books.” When the children were little, they each chose two picture books and I would read Q’s first (shortest attention span), the T’s, and finally F’s and then finish with the chapter book that I chose myself. Easy as… except F decided that this wasn’t really fair (children are great at measuring fairness. I wonder if a system of teaching mathematics at schools – even up through calculus – could be built upon this ability) and so we devised a new household order: Q’s books were first one night, then T’s the next, and then F’s the next. The good news about this complicated system was that the children themselves kept track of whose turn came next and rigidly enforced it. (In fact, having 3 or more children made this easier. If only 2 were involved, I’m guessing that they’d both remember it was their turn every night.)
Now that the children are ever so much older and more mature, they squabble about chapter books instead of picture books. I choose the picture books and parts of my audience come and go as they please. Picture book time is mostly Q’s time these days. Chapter books, though, are selected by the children in turn. All problems solved? Naïve thinking, that. F developed a strategy of choosing the longest book possible, to maximize the time with “his” book. Then T started doing that, too, and soon both were deviously encouraging Q to choose the shortest chapter books they could find. With the advent of self-reading, though, this has mostly faded: a child uninterested in the current book can read a book to him or herself instead.
… except Q isn’t quite that far along yet. He can read short chapter books very well on his own, but the larger ones are still insurmountable. I expect by the end of the summer – at least by Christmas -- he’ll be able to read any book he wants and then tough chapter book dilemmas will be no more.
So today’s may be the last.
Q loves the “Eragon” book series. When he won a gift certificate to a book store from a drawing a couple years ago, he wanted the entire Eragon series. The third book was on the verge of being released and so we had him wait a month or two (no small feat) so that he could get the entire trilogy in one box set. Except when we finished the third book we found out that the series had expanded to four books. The fourth book is coming out soon… or eventually, anyway.
Everyone in my family knows that the best preparation for the release of a new book in a favorite series is to reread the most recent book… better is to reread the whole series. Especially if you were young and don’t remember all the details of your favorite series, which explains why Q wants to hear all three Eragon books again: his next three choices for chapter books.
Now there’s no hard rule against picking books we’ve already heard, but… well, it just isn’t done. There’s only so much group reading time – about 45 minutes a night – and to start repeating books is an insult the other people involved. And really large books, like every book in the Eragon series (over two months to read, each), aren’t quite subject to a veto, but…
So Q’s request is reasonable and backed up by the experience of everyone else in the family, yet it also goes against multiple unwritten rules of our tradition. He is not maliciously choosing something to annoy the others. He can’t read the book himself. Yet it sets his desires against the desires of the two others.
I can see why there’s an underground movement to make King Solomon the patron saint of parents and parenting-related decisions.
My decision isn’t totally made yet, which is unfortunate because we’re finishing T’s book after about 10 minutes of reading tonight. I’m probably going to read “Eragon” (and fend off complaints against unfairness with “He can’t read it himself” and “We read this one a long time ago.”) and rather hope that Q finds another book before we move onto the next one. I expect F and T to retaliate with long books for their next choices… maybe even books we’ve read before. (T’s likely to choose “Twilight”, for example. Oh, I might be able to counter that by offering to read “Eclipse,” saying that Q is old enough to hear it because he will be 8 by then…).
Maybe this is a minor decision, but it still pits the desires of one child against the desires of another. And other decisions will come along: in June, F’s Boy Scout summer camp, which I try to attend, is the same week as Q’s Cub Scout Day camp, which I try to attend. As they get older, the decisions seem more important, too.
Some things were easier once upon a time.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A Word Against Caffeine
Giving up caffeine isn't for everyone. I wouldn't have chosen to do it myself, but I felt I needed to. Here is my story…
I gave up caffeine in November 2008. I had tried, halfheartedly, to cut down the caffeine consumption now and again, but it always crept back up to too many cans of soda a day. When I started drinking chai, too, though, I found that caffeine was really bad on my blood pressure. I actually had a medical professional say "That can't be… I'm going to take your blood pressure again," and then get nearly the same reading. Ouch. Since I'm hoping to live forever, or as close to forever as I can arrange, I decided that I didn't want to continue hurting my internal systems and so I quit drinking anything with caffeine. (Even decaffeinated tea, it turns out, has caffeine… just less of it). So now I drink herbal teas and caffeine-free soda. Carbonation keeps me alert, though. Marvelous stuff.
Interestingly, once I suffered through a couple weeks of withdrawal (the headaches, etc.) and then another couple weeks of feeling slow and stupid, I found that I returned to normal. Or as normal as I'm ever likely to be called.
So now I have a theory about caffeine. I'm basing this solely on my own experience and clever, though unproven, analogy, so I'm sure medical scientists will soon by stopping by my house to ask me questions on many other topics and I'll be glad to think about things for them. Maybe I'll even perform experiments on myself, because I am totally generous when it comes to the good of all humanity and my own fame. Anyway, about caffeine. I'm thinking that caffeine doesn't actually produce energy. Instead, it allows you to push your body harder without noticing the effects right away. Your body and mind only have so much energy to give… that's mostly unchanged no matter how much you coax. So, in a way, caffeine hands you energy only by taking it from elsewhere: from your tomorrow self. It's like energy on credit. Ka-ching! You still have to pay for it later, just not right now. That debt of energy is part of what makes giving caffeine up so maddeningly difficult. Once I broke the cycle of using tomorrow's energy, though, (or the energy from the days and weeks after that) I ended up nearly as alert without the caffeine.
Unless it's all a perception bias. I suppose I could have simply gotten used to the new slower, stupider me. If that is actually the case, and it's noticeable, I probably won't thank you for informing me of that, because I am enjoying this potentially delusional idea, as well as my healthy, frequently even athletic, blood pressure.
There's one other thing I keep telling myself. I believe that I used to be buying energy on credit by drinking caffeine. Well, I read that caffeine gives you a bigger boost if there's less in your system, so you can save up for those times you really need it. Now I have a system that's free of caffeine, so I am sitting on quite a wealth of energy here. I could pop open a soda and cash in that energy sometime when I really really need it. I'll be practically superhuman the day I do, and knowing that makes me smugly happy at times like right now, when I'm lusting for a nap.
I gave up caffeine in November 2008. I had tried, halfheartedly, to cut down the caffeine consumption now and again, but it always crept back up to too many cans of soda a day. When I started drinking chai, too, though, I found that caffeine was really bad on my blood pressure. I actually had a medical professional say "That can't be… I'm going to take your blood pressure again," and then get nearly the same reading. Ouch. Since I'm hoping to live forever, or as close to forever as I can arrange, I decided that I didn't want to continue hurting my internal systems and so I quit drinking anything with caffeine. (Even decaffeinated tea, it turns out, has caffeine… just less of it). So now I drink herbal teas and caffeine-free soda. Carbonation keeps me alert, though. Marvelous stuff.
Interestingly, once I suffered through a couple weeks of withdrawal (the headaches, etc.) and then another couple weeks of feeling slow and stupid, I found that I returned to normal. Or as normal as I'm ever likely to be called.
So now I have a theory about caffeine. I'm basing this solely on my own experience and clever, though unproven, analogy, so I'm sure medical scientists will soon by stopping by my house to ask me questions on many other topics and I'll be glad to think about things for them. Maybe I'll even perform experiments on myself, because I am totally generous when it comes to the good of all humanity and my own fame. Anyway, about caffeine. I'm thinking that caffeine doesn't actually produce energy. Instead, it allows you to push your body harder without noticing the effects right away. Your body and mind only have so much energy to give… that's mostly unchanged no matter how much you coax. So, in a way, caffeine hands you energy only by taking it from elsewhere: from your tomorrow self. It's like energy on credit. Ka-ching! You still have to pay for it later, just not right now. That debt of energy is part of what makes giving caffeine up so maddeningly difficult. Once I broke the cycle of using tomorrow's energy, though, (or the energy from the days and weeks after that) I ended up nearly as alert without the caffeine.
Unless it's all a perception bias. I suppose I could have simply gotten used to the new slower, stupider me. If that is actually the case, and it's noticeable, I probably won't thank you for informing me of that, because I am enjoying this potentially delusional idea, as well as my healthy, frequently even athletic, blood pressure.
There's one other thing I keep telling myself. I believe that I used to be buying energy on credit by drinking caffeine. Well, I read that caffeine gives you a bigger boost if there's less in your system, so you can save up for those times you really need it. Now I have a system that's free of caffeine, so I am sitting on quite a wealth of energy here. I could pop open a soda and cash in that energy sometime when I really really need it. I'll be practically superhuman the day I do, and knowing that makes me smugly happy at times like right now, when I'm lusting for a nap.
A Tip for Teaching Children to Swallow Pills
I learned this from an engineer at that place I work.
Some kids can learn to swallow pills easily, but others have a lot of trouble. When Q was prescribed daily medication, we were lucky enough to be able to get the capsules that you can open and sprinkle onto food, so we had the luxury of being able to ease into pill swallowing. Still, we figured that Q should learn to swallow pills. Besides, it would be easy for him. This is the boy that will eat anything, who is always hungry. This is the boy that ate dinner and dessert, then went to a cub scout meeting where he ate his own treat and the treat of the boy next to him and then announced, on the way home, that he was starving. This is the boy that eats foods that don't taste good together, like when he dunked his brownie in his chili or swept up the remains of his pork gravy with his peach. (In both cases, he liked the taste combination!) This is the boy that accidentally swallowed a cherry pit recently. A small tasteless pill shouldn't be a problem.
I tried to start with chopped up bits of gummy bears, so I could cut any size I wanted, but when I tried to swallow one myself, I found that the gummy stickiness tended to make me nearly choke to death. My wife found the same thing, so I moved on to a cinnamon red hot. Q tried one, but couldn't stand to have that taste in his mouth for long (go figure) and didn't want to try again. So finally he really got started with a mini M&M. We told him to put a small amount of water in his mouth, tilt his head back, drop the M&M in his mouth, and then swallow everything. He swallowed everything but the M&M. Again and again he swallowed mouthfuls of water and each time he was surprised to ind the M&M still in his mouth. Finally his stomach was sloshing and his shirt was wet. We needed a new plan.
When I told the story at work, a guy (let's call him Mike, because that's his name) suggested using crackers instead of water. He said it was the easiest way to swallow pills.
Home again, I gave Q two crackers and a mini M&M. He popped the M&M in after he'd chewed up the crackers and swallowed everything. After a few more successes, he tried a full-sized M&M. No problem. That night, after he'd taken his medicine sprinkled on food, I gave him an empty capsule and two crackers. No problem there, either.
Now Q can chew up three crackers and pop three capsules into his mouth and swallow it all. He has learned to swallow his capsules with just water, too, but he still prefers the cracker method. For my son, anyway, it works.
I told my dad, who is a pharmacist, and my sister, who is an early childhood educator, and neither of them had heard of this method. They both were happy to hear how well this worked, though, because they've both been asked about getting children to swallow pills.
Some kids can learn to swallow pills easily, but others have a lot of trouble. When Q was prescribed daily medication, we were lucky enough to be able to get the capsules that you can open and sprinkle onto food, so we had the luxury of being able to ease into pill swallowing. Still, we figured that Q should learn to swallow pills. Besides, it would be easy for him. This is the boy that will eat anything, who is always hungry. This is the boy that ate dinner and dessert, then went to a cub scout meeting where he ate his own treat and the treat of the boy next to him and then announced, on the way home, that he was starving. This is the boy that eats foods that don't taste good together, like when he dunked his brownie in his chili or swept up the remains of his pork gravy with his peach. (In both cases, he liked the taste combination!) This is the boy that accidentally swallowed a cherry pit recently. A small tasteless pill shouldn't be a problem.
I tried to start with chopped up bits of gummy bears, so I could cut any size I wanted, but when I tried to swallow one myself, I found that the gummy stickiness tended to make me nearly choke to death. My wife found the same thing, so I moved on to a cinnamon red hot. Q tried one, but couldn't stand to have that taste in his mouth for long (go figure) and didn't want to try again. So finally he really got started with a mini M&M. We told him to put a small amount of water in his mouth, tilt his head back, drop the M&M in his mouth, and then swallow everything. He swallowed everything but the M&M. Again and again he swallowed mouthfuls of water and each time he was surprised to ind the M&M still in his mouth. Finally his stomach was sloshing and his shirt was wet. We needed a new plan.
When I told the story at work, a guy (let's call him Mike, because that's his name) suggested using crackers instead of water. He said it was the easiest way to swallow pills.
Home again, I gave Q two crackers and a mini M&M. He popped the M&M in after he'd chewed up the crackers and swallowed everything. After a few more successes, he tried a full-sized M&M. No problem. That night, after he'd taken his medicine sprinkled on food, I gave him an empty capsule and two crackers. No problem there, either.
Now Q can chew up three crackers and pop three capsules into his mouth and swallow it all. He has learned to swallow his capsules with just water, too, but he still prefers the cracker method. For my son, anyway, it works.
I told my dad, who is a pharmacist, and my sister, who is an early childhood educator, and neither of them had heard of this method. They both were happy to hear how well this worked, though, because they've both been asked about getting children to swallow pills.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Experimenting on Children
It's nearly time to see how my experiment has worked.
Theory: My theory is that if you teach kids thinking skills and confidence in themselves, they'll be less subject to the influence of their peers.
Apparatus: To conduct this experiment, I generated three children and spent around a decade developing their confidence.
Goals: To make the children accustomed to coming up with and having confidence in their own ideas, to realizing that the things other people say can be flawed, and to give them a chance to solve problems on their own and with the help of others.
Long range goal: Hopefully (someday... maybe) they'll also realize that their own ideas and thinking can also be flawed and will apply the questioning skills they've developed to their own ideas.
Steps:
Ask the child a lot of questions,especially of the "how does this work" variety. Like "Why doesn't that balloon fall?" Listen to the answers and use them in later conversations. Show the child his or her thoughts matter by talking about the things that have been said.
Ask "Are you sure?" when the child explains something, whether the explanation is right or wrong, so that "Are you sure?" doesn't become a code for "I think you're wrong." If he or she asks "Is that right?" answer with "I think so" rather than "yes," indicating that truth is subjective. Do not pose as the expert.
Answer questions with "What do you think?" And when forced to answer a question, phrase it as "I think that …" so the child realizes that what is said is opinion. This will train the child to think of the world as something we're all trying to work together to understand rather than a solved problem that can be explained by the correct expert.
Say age-appropriate absurd things, like "Wow, you hit that balloon really hard… let me hold it in front of my face this time" to "Man, it's late! Everyone brush your teeth in the car so you can get right into bed as soon as we get home" to "Oh, this is the tag I need to get you back from the child care room. Why don’t you hold onto it?" Make the child realize that any statement could be flawed at some level.
Encourage questions, don't just allow them. If the child can question a parent or authority figure, he or she will have the strength to question peers. All authority should be subject to questioning. It's just a question. (As an added benefit, the one being questioned is made to think, too. "Does it really matter if dessert comes first?" or "Does it really matter if the shoes match?" Many cultural norms are habitual rather than necessary.)
Try not to answer requests with "no," but with words that explain the situation, leaving it open for the child to solve it. "I can't play with you right now because I have to wash the dishes and collect the trash" or "The problem with you playing outside is that you've left toys on the floor." Again, the child is taught that life is a problem we can work together to solve.
Still awaiting results...
Notes
With F in middle school now, he'll soon be in the hands of his peers and I've tried to armor him against rough treatment that adolescents give each other. The data is about to start coming in....
Theory: My theory is that if you teach kids thinking skills and confidence in themselves, they'll be less subject to the influence of their peers.
Apparatus: To conduct this experiment, I generated three children and spent around a decade developing their confidence.
Goals: To make the children accustomed to coming up with and having confidence in their own ideas, to realizing that the things other people say can be flawed, and to give them a chance to solve problems on their own and with the help of others.
Long range goal: Hopefully (someday... maybe) they'll also realize that their own ideas and thinking can also be flawed and will apply the questioning skills they've developed to their own ideas.
Steps:
Ask the child a lot of questions,especially of the "how does this work" variety. Like "Why doesn't that balloon fall?" Listen to the answers and use them in later conversations. Show the child his or her thoughts matter by talking about the things that have been said.
Ask "Are you sure?" when the child explains something, whether the explanation is right or wrong, so that "Are you sure?" doesn't become a code for "I think you're wrong." If he or she asks "Is that right?" answer with "I think so" rather than "yes," indicating that truth is subjective. Do not pose as the expert.
Answer questions with "What do you think?" And when forced to answer a question, phrase it as "I think that …" so the child realizes that what is said is opinion. This will train the child to think of the world as something we're all trying to work together to understand rather than a solved problem that can be explained by the correct expert.
Say age-appropriate absurd things, like "Wow, you hit that balloon really hard… let me hold it in front of my face this time" to "Man, it's late! Everyone brush your teeth in the car so you can get right into bed as soon as we get home" to "Oh, this is the tag I need to get you back from the child care room. Why don’t you hold onto it?" Make the child realize that any statement could be flawed at some level.
Encourage questions, don't just allow them. If the child can question a parent or authority figure, he or she will have the strength to question peers. All authority should be subject to questioning. It's just a question. (As an added benefit, the one being questioned is made to think, too. "Does it really matter if dessert comes first?" or "Does it really matter if the shoes match?" Many cultural norms are habitual rather than necessary.)
Try not to answer requests with "no," but with words that explain the situation, leaving it open for the child to solve it. "I can't play with you right now because I have to wash the dishes and collect the trash" or "The problem with you playing outside is that you've left toys on the floor." Again, the child is taught that life is a problem we can work together to solve.
Still awaiting results...
Notes
With F in middle school now, he'll soon be in the hands of his peers and I've tried to armor him against rough treatment that adolescents give each other. The data is about to start coming in....
Theoretical linguistics I
So here's my little thought.
A 'palindrome' is a word, phrase, or sentence that's spelled the same backwards and forwards, right? So why isn't the word itself a palindrome? Wouldn't that just make more sense?
I guess our language is full of little things like that -- the word 'onomatopoeia' doesn't sound like the thing it describes, so it isn't onomatopoetic -- but couldn't we fix the place up a little? Or at least supply some more options? It's not like we're trying to preserve a tiny little language set anyway. You say 'synonymous' and I say 'redundant.'
I envision a world full of synonyms for 'palindrome.' Some of them are palindromic themselves and some, like our current word 'palindrome,' aren't. 'Palinnilap' would be a great synonym for palindrome -- it keeps the Greek etymology of 'back again' and drops the 'running' part for a second, reversed, 'back again' -- and has the advantage of being a palindrome itself. That word's even better than the original, I'd have to say if I weren't so adorably humble, but I'm sure there are lots of other perfectly good constructions that would lead to synonyms, both palindromic and not. Even more options appear if one drops the rather archaic requirement of reasonable etymology. Imagine 10,000 words that all mean 'palindrome:' some are palindromic and some are not.
Now if we lived in a world with such a rich selection of words, it would be important to be able to talk about those words. A poet, you know, or a lyricist or even a third grader composing a taunt might require a non-palindromic palindrome synonym, which is a description that does not slide easily from the tongue. It really requires a single-word description for everyday use. And soon you have words to describe the four possible classes of words: palindromic palindrome synonyms, non-palindromic palindrome synonyms, palindromic words that are not synonymous with 'palindrome,' and non-palindromic words that are not synonymous with 'palindrome' (the last being a surprisingly large set). Even for us, these four classifications cover all possible words; it's just that the utility of this division is a little questionable in our current language. Still, it's good to make structures to help us understand our language and improve it for future speakers, right? So we categorize.
Then comes the obvious next question: what should we call non-palindromic names for the category of palindromic palindrome synonyms?
If only there were money in theoretical linguistics…
A 'palindrome' is a word, phrase, or sentence that's spelled the same backwards and forwards, right? So why isn't the word itself a palindrome? Wouldn't that just make more sense?
I guess our language is full of little things like that -- the word 'onomatopoeia' doesn't sound like the thing it describes, so it isn't onomatopoetic -- but couldn't we fix the place up a little? Or at least supply some more options? It's not like we're trying to preserve a tiny little language set anyway. You say 'synonymous' and I say 'redundant.'
I envision a world full of synonyms for 'palindrome.' Some of them are palindromic themselves and some, like our current word 'palindrome,' aren't. 'Palinnilap' would be a great synonym for palindrome -- it keeps the Greek etymology of 'back again' and drops the 'running' part for a second, reversed, 'back again' -- and has the advantage of being a palindrome itself. That word's even better than the original, I'd have to say if I weren't so adorably humble, but I'm sure there are lots of other perfectly good constructions that would lead to synonyms, both palindromic and not. Even more options appear if one drops the rather archaic requirement of reasonable etymology. Imagine 10,000 words that all mean 'palindrome:' some are palindromic and some are not.
Now if we lived in a world with such a rich selection of words, it would be important to be able to talk about those words. A poet, you know, or a lyricist or even a third grader composing a taunt might require a non-palindromic palindrome synonym, which is a description that does not slide easily from the tongue. It really requires a single-word description for everyday use. And soon you have words to describe the four possible classes of words: palindromic palindrome synonyms, non-palindromic palindrome synonyms, palindromic words that are not synonymous with 'palindrome,' and non-palindromic words that are not synonymous with 'palindrome' (the last being a surprisingly large set). Even for us, these four classifications cover all possible words; it's just that the utility of this division is a little questionable in our current language. Still, it's good to make structures to help us understand our language and improve it for future speakers, right? So we categorize.
Then comes the obvious next question: what should we call non-palindromic names for the category of palindromic palindrome synonyms?
If only there were money in theoretical linguistics…
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Scariest moments of my life
The chronicles of some of the scariest moments of my life
(1) Q's first seizure. I was home alone, thought he was choking, called 911, and rode in an ambulance for the first time.
(2) T was about 3 years old and we were at a playground. Little Miss Daring decided that the playground equipment, while rather fun, didn't challenge her climbing skills. I was watching from nearby, but apparently not close enough. Before I realized her plan, she had scaled the outer structure and was 8 feet in the air with her belly on a support beam and the rest of her body just dangling. I tried to stay under her and climb up to her at the same time, repeatedly, but it was either-or. Finally I just stood under her, preparing to catch her if she slipped. She looked around for a few forevers, then got bored and climbed back down. "Hiya, Dada!" she said when she was on the ground again. It was years before she was allowed at a playground without a bungee safety cord.
(3) F was about 5 years old at a crowded playground. I was standing under T who was dangling 8 feet in the air from the support structure of some of the playground equipment. When T regained the ground, F was missing. Missing. I stood different edges of the playground, trying to recall what colors he was wearing. I climbed up on some of the equipment, trying to get a different vantage point. I was just starting to ask other adults if they'd seen F when he appeared in the middle of a group of boys. He'd gone on the other side of the bathroom building to see what was there and come back while I was panicking.
(4) I was at a campground playground (what is it with playgrounds?) when I was 11. We were playing tag and a bigger boy was chasing me. I turned to look behind me — he was nearly right behind me — and then I turned forward to run faster. Suddenly "BAM!" He kicked me in the head. Or so I thought. I was definitely on the ground, my baseball cap was gone, and my head hurt a lot. Some adults cooking dinner at a nearby campsite looked up at me. Their eyes grew big and they started running toward me. Do I know these people?!? That's when blood oozed down the entire right side of my head. Woozy, I sat down. It turns out I had come very close to fitting under the big 4x4 plank that was a bridge for the playground equipment. Very close to fitting, but not quite. I'd torn back part of my scalp on that wooden bridge and the emergency room put 9 stitches in my 6 inch long gash. This probably makes my mom's list of scariest moments ever, too.
(5) Around midnight one night, my wife woke me up. "I smell smoke." We have a house built in the late 70s, so it is blessed with aluminum (rather than copper) wiring, which is "safe enough." No smoke detectors were screaming, it was just the smell of smoke. Strongest downstairs. I carried a smoke detector around down there, trying to get it to give me a clue where to look, but it remained quiet. Then I thought of the dog. He's part basset hound, right? He has this great nose, doesn't he? So I carried him around downstairs, but he just looked at me with big "What're ya doin'?" eyes. We gave up on finding the fire ourselves, thinking it could be behind a wall or something. My wife called 911 and, at their advice, woke the kids and took them outside. I ran downstairs and shut off all the power (except for one circuit to light my way back up the stairs), figuring that had to help. Finally a police officer arrived. He and I looked around downstairs and his flashlight touched on a wisp of smoke rising from my big seedling tray, still growing had a few pepper and tomato plants a bit too big to be called seedlings anymore. Suddenly I realize how this looks. I'm not conservative looking at the best of times, but I just got out of bed and I'm wearing cutoff jean shorts. No shirt, no shoes. I've got plants growing in my basement. "Oh, man, my tomato plants!" I say, to reassure him that I've got nothing illegal growing there. I unplug the under-dirt heater (which just happens to be on the only circuit I left powered) and pour water on it. By the time the firemen arrive to axe through our front door, there's nothing for them to do but help air out the house. And we've been under federal surveillance ever since...
(1) Q's first seizure. I was home alone, thought he was choking, called 911, and rode in an ambulance for the first time.
(2) T was about 3 years old and we were at a playground. Little Miss Daring decided that the playground equipment, while rather fun, didn't challenge her climbing skills. I was watching from nearby, but apparently not close enough. Before I realized her plan, she had scaled the outer structure and was 8 feet in the air with her belly on a support beam and the rest of her body just dangling. I tried to stay under her and climb up to her at the same time, repeatedly, but it was either-or. Finally I just stood under her, preparing to catch her if she slipped. She looked around for a few forevers, then got bored and climbed back down. "Hiya, Dada!" she said when she was on the ground again. It was years before she was allowed at a playground without a bungee safety cord.
(3) F was about 5 years old at a crowded playground. I was standing under T who was dangling 8 feet in the air from the support structure of some of the playground equipment. When T regained the ground, F was missing. Missing. I stood different edges of the playground, trying to recall what colors he was wearing. I climbed up on some of the equipment, trying to get a different vantage point. I was just starting to ask other adults if they'd seen F when he appeared in the middle of a group of boys. He'd gone on the other side of the bathroom building to see what was there and come back while I was panicking.
(4) I was at a campground playground (what is it with playgrounds?) when I was 11. We were playing tag and a bigger boy was chasing me. I turned to look behind me — he was nearly right behind me — and then I turned forward to run faster. Suddenly "BAM!" He kicked me in the head. Or so I thought. I was definitely on the ground, my baseball cap was gone, and my head hurt a lot. Some adults cooking dinner at a nearby campsite looked up at me. Their eyes grew big and they started running toward me. Do I know these people?!? That's when blood oozed down the entire right side of my head. Woozy, I sat down. It turns out I had come very close to fitting under the big 4x4 plank that was a bridge for the playground equipment. Very close to fitting, but not quite. I'd torn back part of my scalp on that wooden bridge and the emergency room put 9 stitches in my 6 inch long gash. This probably makes my mom's list of scariest moments ever, too.
(5) Around midnight one night, my wife woke me up. "I smell smoke." We have a house built in the late 70s, so it is blessed with aluminum (rather than copper) wiring, which is "safe enough." No smoke detectors were screaming, it was just the smell of smoke. Strongest downstairs. I carried a smoke detector around down there, trying to get it to give me a clue where to look, but it remained quiet. Then I thought of the dog. He's part basset hound, right? He has this great nose, doesn't he? So I carried him around downstairs, but he just looked at me with big "What're ya doin'?" eyes. We gave up on finding the fire ourselves, thinking it could be behind a wall or something. My wife called 911 and, at their advice, woke the kids and took them outside. I ran downstairs and shut off all the power (except for one circuit to light my way back up the stairs), figuring that had to help. Finally a police officer arrived. He and I looked around downstairs and his flashlight touched on a wisp of smoke rising from my big seedling tray, still growing had a few pepper and tomato plants a bit too big to be called seedlings anymore. Suddenly I realize how this looks. I'm not conservative looking at the best of times, but I just got out of bed and I'm wearing cutoff jean shorts. No shirt, no shoes. I've got plants growing in my basement. "Oh, man, my tomato plants!" I say, to reassure him that I've got nothing illegal growing there. I unplug the under-dirt heater (which just happens to be on the only circuit I left powered) and pour water on it. By the time the firemen arrive to axe through our front door, there's nothing for them to do but help air out the house. And we've been under federal surveillance ever since...
25 random things about me
1. Most people don't realize there are two versions of me: the loud outgoing theatrical one and the nearly silent one.
2. I always wanted to be an astronaut and would still love to visit the moon…. Or, even better, another planet.
3. I tell my kids that my favorite thing is "books."
4. I used to read one book at a time, but at the moment I'm in the middle of at least ten.
5. I don't watch any TV shows. Not even the news or sports.
6. I used to be a radio DJ in Rolla and I totally miss doing that.
7. I still juggle (including clubs). I do funny shows for my kids (and their friends) at their birthday parties.
8. I think eyes are among the most beautiful things in the world.
9. I cross-stitch.
10. I figure out software by empathy. I imagine I'm the software routine and look around to see what I know, or what I need to know to do my job.
11. I have a hard time saying "no" to anything. Even when I say "no," I usually change my mind a few minutes later.
12. I love irony. And the absurd.
13. I love playing with words.
14. I've never been drunk, but if it's anything like coming out of anesthesia, I bet I'd be very entertaining.
15. I don't believe in rules. I believe in guidelines and best practices.
16. I'm an Eagle Scout.
17. I've researched speech development, obsessive-compulsive disorder, epilepsy, and sensory integration disorders at various times to help my kids. I'll make myself a semi-expert on anything for the good of my children.
18 (a). I believe that knowledge is the most important thing in solving any problem.
18 (b). I believe that cooperation is the most important thing in solving any problem.
18 (c). I believe that imagination is the most important thing in solving any problem.
18 (d). I believe that experimentation is the most important thing in solving any problem.
19. I learned to play bridge more by watching my partner's reaction to my play than by what I was actually taught.
20. I acted in 10 plays at UMR and totally miss doing that.
21. Part of the reason I decided to be Cubmaster for the Cub Scouts is so I'd have an audience again.
22. I sing harmony to songs when I'm home alone. I make up the harmonies myself and don't care how off-key it turns out.
23. I do nothing for only one reason. I have to have multiple motivations before I'll do a thing.
24. I dropped out of my PhD program when all I had left to do was my dissertation.
25 (a). The journal I have written in every day since January 1,1994 is addressed to "Future-Bob," a theoretical historian reading my journal in the future.
25 (b). I'll do nearly anything to prove a stereotype wrong.
25 (c). I'm a horrible patient when I'm sick. I want to pretend I'm well, so I try to do everything for myself.
2. I always wanted to be an astronaut and would still love to visit the moon…. Or, even better, another planet.
3. I tell my kids that my favorite thing is "books."
4. I used to read one book at a time, but at the moment I'm in the middle of at least ten.
5. I don't watch any TV shows. Not even the news or sports.
6. I used to be a radio DJ in Rolla and I totally miss doing that.
7. I still juggle (including clubs). I do funny shows for my kids (and their friends) at their birthday parties.
8. I think eyes are among the most beautiful things in the world.
9. I cross-stitch.
10. I figure out software by empathy. I imagine I'm the software routine and look around to see what I know, or what I need to know to do my job.
11. I have a hard time saying "no" to anything. Even when I say "no," I usually change my mind a few minutes later.
12. I love irony. And the absurd.
13. I love playing with words.
14. I've never been drunk, but if it's anything like coming out of anesthesia, I bet I'd be very entertaining.
15. I don't believe in rules. I believe in guidelines and best practices.
16. I'm an Eagle Scout.
17. I've researched speech development, obsessive-compulsive disorder, epilepsy, and sensory integration disorders at various times to help my kids. I'll make myself a semi-expert on anything for the good of my children.
18 (a). I believe that knowledge is the most important thing in solving any problem.
18 (b). I believe that cooperation is the most important thing in solving any problem.
18 (c). I believe that imagination is the most important thing in solving any problem.
18 (d). I believe that experimentation is the most important thing in solving any problem.
19. I learned to play bridge more by watching my partner's reaction to my play than by what I was actually taught.
20. I acted in 10 plays at UMR and totally miss doing that.
21. Part of the reason I decided to be Cubmaster for the Cub Scouts is so I'd have an audience again.
22. I sing harmony to songs when I'm home alone. I make up the harmonies myself and don't care how off-key it turns out.
23. I do nothing for only one reason. I have to have multiple motivations before I'll do a thing.
24. I dropped out of my PhD program when all I had left to do was my dissertation.
25 (a). The journal I have written in every day since January 1,1994 is addressed to "Future-Bob," a theoretical historian reading my journal in the future.
25 (b). I'll do nearly anything to prove a stereotype wrong.
25 (c). I'm a horrible patient when I'm sick. I want to pretend I'm well, so I try to do everything for myself.
Christmas stuff
On Christmas morning, after the presents are opened, comes one of my favorite parts of the day: getting everything put together and into its new place. Even when we Christmas away from home, there's still that time when the new stuff gets unboxed and worked into the fabric of my house.
I'm the oldest of four, so (of course) I always got the coolest stuff for Christmas and I learned early that the third best way to protect my stuff was to get it put away. The best way to protect everything, of course, was to hide it; the problem with that choice being that if I hid it well enough to keep my siblings out of it, I might not be able to find it again myself. The second best protection was to set a snare around it, but... let's just say that had troubles, too. So instead I took all my new stuff and put it away as soon as I got the chance. As a little bonus, I'd occasionally forget about one of the new put-away things for a few days and then have a little surprise when I noticed it again. But my primary motivation was to keep my stuff safe.
Now that I'm a parent, my priorities have changed a little bit. I still move my new stuff quickly, I just put it on my bed. I'm not quite as worried that my brother'll stop by and fire up my new power tools before I get to try, so my bed is safe enough. Next I set up the new stuff that the kids received. When they were little, that meant removing twist tie after twist tie from the Fischer-Price toys; now it's more likely that I'll be putting battereis into a new toy, or even installing a new game on the computer.
This year, priority one was the new Wii. Everyone wanted to try it out: by setting it up first, I then had a little time to figure out what else needed construction or unpackaging that the kids couldn't handle. Once their new things were all done, then I felt like I could go integrate my new stuff -- clothes, books, etc -- into my house.
What I don't understand, though, is how my very own children -- blood of my blood -- simply did not inherit or learn my strategy of putting new stuff away. Christmas was more than two weeks ago and still... stuff is lying about. It's not like they don't touch each other's stuff. Complaints about "That's mine and it's new!" are frequently heard. (The rule in our house is that you can't touch anyone else's new stuff if they've had it less than a day. The children expanded that rule themselves to include any toy that was missing for a long time and just reappeared.) They're smart enough kids; you'd think they'd come up with a better strategy that simply complaining. To be fair, T is starting to implement the "putting stuff away" plan, but just this year when she's on the verge of age 10.
I've learned by at-times-painful trial-and-error that if I move something to put it away and (1) it's not actually mine and (2) I can't recall where I thought "away" was, then I am responsible for the search that will be required. So I don't move stuff that isn't mine (which is a rule my parents trained me to follow in the first place.) Okay, plus I can be lazy about other people's things. And some part of my brain insists that the owner will learn a lesson if the toy is lost or broken. My hesitation to move the stuff that belongs to others has many reasons.
The problem that comes this time of year is that the new Christmas toys lie scattered around the house and in the next few days the birthdays start arriving. All three of my kids chose to have birthdays in the 40 days that follow Christmas (which I believe is poor planning. I definitely prefer my early Spring birthday. Again, my children didn't follow my example...), so more new things will arrive and want for places to live, too.
This year I finally realized that my strategy for dealing with the growing messiness is to avoid and ignore. I find lots of reasons to be outside the house (despite the weather) and, when I do have to be home, I spend more time than normal in my room or workshop. The problem with this semi-unintentioanl strategy is that I tend to drag the children places "Let's go ice skating!" or "Let's go out to eat tonight!" or "We haven't seen a movie in a while!" or "Weather's great for sledding!" By dragging the kids away so much, I don't really give them the opportunity to get bored with the things in the house and maybe (just maybe) put stuff away. So I'm looking for a better strategy now. Something that keeps them in the house, but less entertained, yet keeps me busy when I'm here.
Oh, maybe I need to find a Wii game I like and demand my turn on the thing.
I'm the oldest of four, so (of course) I always got the coolest stuff for Christmas and I learned early that the third best way to protect my stuff was to get it put away. The best way to protect everything, of course, was to hide it; the problem with that choice being that if I hid it well enough to keep my siblings out of it, I might not be able to find it again myself. The second best protection was to set a snare around it, but... let's just say that had troubles, too. So instead I took all my new stuff and put it away as soon as I got the chance. As a little bonus, I'd occasionally forget about one of the new put-away things for a few days and then have a little surprise when I noticed it again. But my primary motivation was to keep my stuff safe.
Now that I'm a parent, my priorities have changed a little bit. I still move my new stuff quickly, I just put it on my bed. I'm not quite as worried that my brother'll stop by and fire up my new power tools before I get to try, so my bed is safe enough. Next I set up the new stuff that the kids received. When they were little, that meant removing twist tie after twist tie from the Fischer-Price toys; now it's more likely that I'll be putting battereis into a new toy, or even installing a new game on the computer.
This year, priority one was the new Wii. Everyone wanted to try it out: by setting it up first, I then had a little time to figure out what else needed construction or unpackaging that the kids couldn't handle. Once their new things were all done, then I felt like I could go integrate my new stuff -- clothes, books, etc -- into my house.
What I don't understand, though, is how my very own children -- blood of my blood -- simply did not inherit or learn my strategy of putting new stuff away. Christmas was more than two weeks ago and still... stuff is lying about. It's not like they don't touch each other's stuff. Complaints about "That's mine and it's new!" are frequently heard. (The rule in our house is that you can't touch anyone else's new stuff if they've had it less than a day. The children expanded that rule themselves to include any toy that was missing for a long time and just reappeared.) They're smart enough kids; you'd think they'd come up with a better strategy that simply complaining. To be fair, T is starting to implement the "putting stuff away" plan, but just this year when she's on the verge of age 10.
I've learned by at-times-painful trial-and-error that if I move something to put it away and (1) it's not actually mine and (2) I can't recall where I thought "away" was, then I am responsible for the search that will be required. So I don't move stuff that isn't mine (which is a rule my parents trained me to follow in the first place.) Okay, plus I can be lazy about other people's things. And some part of my brain insists that the owner will learn a lesson if the toy is lost or broken. My hesitation to move the stuff that belongs to others has many reasons.
The problem that comes this time of year is that the new Christmas toys lie scattered around the house and in the next few days the birthdays start arriving. All three of my kids chose to have birthdays in the 40 days that follow Christmas (which I believe is poor planning. I definitely prefer my early Spring birthday. Again, my children didn't follow my example...), so more new things will arrive and want for places to live, too.
This year I finally realized that my strategy for dealing with the growing messiness is to avoid and ignore. I find lots of reasons to be outside the house (despite the weather) and, when I do have to be home, I spend more time than normal in my room or workshop. The problem with this semi-unintentioanl strategy is that I tend to drag the children places "Let's go ice skating!" or "Let's go out to eat tonight!" or "We haven't seen a movie in a while!" or "Weather's great for sledding!" By dragging the kids away so much, I don't really give them the opportunity to get bored with the things in the house and maybe (just maybe) put stuff away. So I'm looking for a better strategy now. Something that keeps them in the house, but less entertained, yet keeps me busy when I'm here.
Oh, maybe I need to find a Wii game I like and demand my turn on the thing.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Q's first seizure
WARNING: Scary words. You may want to reconsider reading this.
By far the scariest moment of my life was the day of Q's first seizure. I thought he was dying. Having a child choke has always been one of my worst fear. For a few moments I actually thought Q was choking to death. I'm normally the type of person who can find the entertaining lining to any dark cloud. It's rare that you'll see me without a smile on my face and laughter ready to burble forth, but this was so intense that I found myself telling the story to everyone, as if I were trying to diffuse the emotions by theraputic repetition.
Q and I had been home alone for the weekend and we'd reached Sunday afternoon. My wife and the other two kids were on the road back from out of town. Q and I had gone swimming in the afternoon and he had jumped off the high platform dive for most of our visit. On our way home we were discussing dinner and the fun we'd had at the pool when we almost crashed into another car. The other driver had drifted into the center turn lane as if he were unsure of where he wanted to go, then suddenly swerved into a right turn across two lanes of road empty of cars except mine. Q and I had both been thrown forward against our seatbelts, but I had managed to stop without smashing into the passenger side of his car. I guess you never know when something unexpected is going to swerve into your path.
Home, we'd eaten pizza for dinner and then started playing Uno. Q was chewing gum… a special treat. He says that he threw away the gum during our Uno game, but I don't remember that.
As we played, I called out the cards I'd play (as always when playing with kids) and chattered to Q. In a moment of nice rhythm -- Q's card, my card, Q's card, my card -- there was a pause. Q's card was taking a long time, so I looked over at him. Q's eyes were closed and his head was falling backwards against the chair. For a moment I thought he was thinking or playing, but his head kept going backwards… painfully backwards. Then I thought of the gum.
My aunt once had a child get his airway blocked by a small piece of plastic. She had jammed her fingers nearly down his throat, and was able to slide the plastic out of the way. This was my first thought as I pictured Q's gum. I swept my fingers through his mouth twice, not finding anything. So I reached as far back in Q's mouth as I dared… still nothing. I was alone with Q and he was choking. Someone had to call 911, someone had to try to get the gum out of Q's throat, and someone had to panic. These were the necessary roles, and I was the only one there to handle them. I combined all three as best I could, flipping Q over (holding the 60+ pound boy in one arm, semi-upside-down) so I could pound on his back and try to knock the gum loose while running to the nearest phone and shouting and then shrieking Q's name and semi-coherent interjectionary prayers.
In the family room, I put him down. His face was blue. He was so very blue and he wasn't breathing. My mind was counting seconds, trying to decide when brain damage started. The gum had to come out! Help had to be called! I pulled Q's limp body to a sitting position and tried to force the steps for the Heimlich Manuever past the panic. I tried once lightly, then a second time with some force. At some point Q threw up a little… maybe it was then. I laid him back down. More blue! Not breathing! I scrabbled for the phone, thinking Q was dying. "How can this be happening when I'm right here?!?" I looked at Q so still and blue and for a moment I thought it was too late. I thought he was dead. I saw myself having to tell people what happened. I saw things Q would never experience. I hurt.
I think the death of your own child has got to be like a black hole, swallowing huge chunks of yourself: your image of your life and your future. I looked into that hole for a few seconds -- no more -- and that feeling of helplessness and despair still resurfaces at times.
911 answered. Panic erased the first things we said. I remember screaming at the operator "My son is dying!" and hearing "Sir, you have to calm down if I'm going to help you. What is your address?" I spat it out unintelligibly fast. Another plea for calm thought. "I'm not helping!" I remember thinking, "Q is dying and I'm making it worse." I shut down my emotions and answered everything briskly. "Help is on the way," the operator said, "Now I need you to…" I tilted Q's head back to open the airway. I tried to check his mouth for obstructions, but Q bit my finger. HARD. I tried a second time. He was going to bit my finger off if I let him. "I can't!" I said. Then I realized Q was moaning. He was dying and moaning. Then I realized that if he was moaning, air was coming out. "He's moaning! He's breathing!!" I shouted. I started stroking Q's forehead to let him know I was right next to him. And I heard that the paramedics were getting close.
Suddenly I realized I was home alone with the front door bolted shut. "I have to unlock the door," I told the 911 operator. "I want you to stay your son," the operator said, "Can't someone else unlock the door." "I'm home alone." "Go quickly, but safely." I unlocked and opened the front door, then came right back. Q was still breathing.
Boe, our dog, usually barks when anyone comes near our house, but he was silent when the paramedics and police knocked on the door. He let them come in without a sound. I started telling my story and Q's eyes opened. He was alert for a second, then gone again. The paramedics said it didn't seem like choking. They said we needed to go to the emergency room. One of them carried Q out. Boe tried to follow. I locked him in his crate, grabbed my wallet, and left. From the ambulance I saw a police officer talking to neighbors, then I concentrated on Q.
Q had moments of being alert. He'd say he was okay (Q's the boy who'll tell us he's okay while he's still falling), but then his eyes would roll back and he'd be gone again. The paramedic gave Q an IV connection and Q cried, but silently, as if it hurt but he was too exhausted to care how much. I babbled to Q, to the paramedic, maybe even to myself. Q surprised the paramedic by throwing up what looked like everything he'd eaten all day and then we were at the hospital.
Q was wheeled into the ER. I answered questions and signed papers. Q was subdued but fully alert. A doctor said "probably a seizure." I thought of calling my wife, but she was still a two-hour drive away. I decided to wait. I sat and held Q's warm, living foot… his whole warm leg. He was alive again and I hated every moment that I wasn't touching him. Q said he was tired. I moved to a different chair and stroked his cheek, held his hand. He fell asleep. More hospital people asked questions, saw my shining eyes. "Is he okay?" "I thought he was dying." They didn't stay long.
I waited until I thought my wife was about 30 minutes out of town, in case she was driving fast. I didn't want her to get home and worry, but I didn't want her to have to drive worried either. "Where are you?" I asked. About where I expected. "First, Q is fine... We're in the emergency room..."
There were things I would have done different if I'd had a rehearsal for Q's seizure, but I never saw it coming. I would have checked his breathing more thoroughly. Maybe he was breathing shallowly the whole time and I missed it. I think I would have been more calm if someone else had been there to panic, but I'm glad that no one else has to have memories of when they thought Q was dead. I am so thankful that the other two kids weren't there to hear my shrieks and pleas so that they can still believe, for a while yet, that there are no situations I can't handle.
Some people seemed concerned about the epilepsy diagnosis, but I told them that didn't bother me at all. "I thought my son was dead. I don't care what he has. Q is alive."
I tried to keep Q from knowing the worst details of his first seizure. He remembers playing cards and then being in the ambulance, nothing in between. Even the ambulance trip is fuzzy for him. But he must have heard me saying that I thought he had died because the next day when I got home from work he came into the garage, smiled at me, and asked, "Daddy, are you happy I'm not dead?" "More than you can imagine," I said, holding myself together until he went back into the house
By far the scariest moment of my life was the day of Q's first seizure. I thought he was dying. Having a child choke has always been one of my worst fear. For a few moments I actually thought Q was choking to death. I'm normally the type of person who can find the entertaining lining to any dark cloud. It's rare that you'll see me without a smile on my face and laughter ready to burble forth, but this was so intense that I found myself telling the story to everyone, as if I were trying to diffuse the emotions by theraputic repetition.
Q and I had been home alone for the weekend and we'd reached Sunday afternoon. My wife and the other two kids were on the road back from out of town. Q and I had gone swimming in the afternoon and he had jumped off the high platform dive for most of our visit. On our way home we were discussing dinner and the fun we'd had at the pool when we almost crashed into another car. The other driver had drifted into the center turn lane as if he were unsure of where he wanted to go, then suddenly swerved into a right turn across two lanes of road empty of cars except mine. Q and I had both been thrown forward against our seatbelts, but I had managed to stop without smashing into the passenger side of his car. I guess you never know when something unexpected is going to swerve into your path.
Home, we'd eaten pizza for dinner and then started playing Uno. Q was chewing gum… a special treat. He says that he threw away the gum during our Uno game, but I don't remember that.
As we played, I called out the cards I'd play (as always when playing with kids) and chattered to Q. In a moment of nice rhythm -- Q's card, my card, Q's card, my card -- there was a pause. Q's card was taking a long time, so I looked over at him. Q's eyes were closed and his head was falling backwards against the chair. For a moment I thought he was thinking or playing, but his head kept going backwards… painfully backwards. Then I thought of the gum.
My aunt once had a child get his airway blocked by a small piece of plastic. She had jammed her fingers nearly down his throat, and was able to slide the plastic out of the way. This was my first thought as I pictured Q's gum. I swept my fingers through his mouth twice, not finding anything. So I reached as far back in Q's mouth as I dared… still nothing. I was alone with Q and he was choking. Someone had to call 911, someone had to try to get the gum out of Q's throat, and someone had to panic. These were the necessary roles, and I was the only one there to handle them. I combined all three as best I could, flipping Q over (holding the 60+ pound boy in one arm, semi-upside-down) so I could pound on his back and try to knock the gum loose while running to the nearest phone and shouting and then shrieking Q's name and semi-coherent interjectionary prayers.
In the family room, I put him down. His face was blue. He was so very blue and he wasn't breathing. My mind was counting seconds, trying to decide when brain damage started. The gum had to come out! Help had to be called! I pulled Q's limp body to a sitting position and tried to force the steps for the Heimlich Manuever past the panic. I tried once lightly, then a second time with some force. At some point Q threw up a little… maybe it was then. I laid him back down. More blue! Not breathing! I scrabbled for the phone, thinking Q was dying. "How can this be happening when I'm right here?!?" I looked at Q so still and blue and for a moment I thought it was too late. I thought he was dead. I saw myself having to tell people what happened. I saw things Q would never experience. I hurt.
I think the death of your own child has got to be like a black hole, swallowing huge chunks of yourself: your image of your life and your future. I looked into that hole for a few seconds -- no more -- and that feeling of helplessness and despair still resurfaces at times.
911 answered. Panic erased the first things we said. I remember screaming at the operator "My son is dying!" and hearing "Sir, you have to calm down if I'm going to help you. What is your address?" I spat it out unintelligibly fast. Another plea for calm thought. "I'm not helping!" I remember thinking, "Q is dying and I'm making it worse." I shut down my emotions and answered everything briskly. "Help is on the way," the operator said, "Now I need you to…" I tilted Q's head back to open the airway. I tried to check his mouth for obstructions, but Q bit my finger. HARD. I tried a second time. He was going to bit my finger off if I let him. "I can't!" I said. Then I realized Q was moaning. He was dying and moaning. Then I realized that if he was moaning, air was coming out. "He's moaning! He's breathing!!" I shouted. I started stroking Q's forehead to let him know I was right next to him. And I heard that the paramedics were getting close.
Suddenly I realized I was home alone with the front door bolted shut. "I have to unlock the door," I told the 911 operator. "I want you to stay your son," the operator said, "Can't someone else unlock the door." "I'm home alone." "Go quickly, but safely." I unlocked and opened the front door, then came right back. Q was still breathing.
Boe, our dog, usually barks when anyone comes near our house, but he was silent when the paramedics and police knocked on the door. He let them come in without a sound. I started telling my story and Q's eyes opened. He was alert for a second, then gone again. The paramedics said it didn't seem like choking. They said we needed to go to the emergency room. One of them carried Q out. Boe tried to follow. I locked him in his crate, grabbed my wallet, and left. From the ambulance I saw a police officer talking to neighbors, then I concentrated on Q.
Q had moments of being alert. He'd say he was okay (Q's the boy who'll tell us he's okay while he's still falling), but then his eyes would roll back and he'd be gone again. The paramedic gave Q an IV connection and Q cried, but silently, as if it hurt but he was too exhausted to care how much. I babbled to Q, to the paramedic, maybe even to myself. Q surprised the paramedic by throwing up what looked like everything he'd eaten all day and then we were at the hospital.
Q was wheeled into the ER. I answered questions and signed papers. Q was subdued but fully alert. A doctor said "probably a seizure." I thought of calling my wife, but she was still a two-hour drive away. I decided to wait. I sat and held Q's warm, living foot… his whole warm leg. He was alive again and I hated every moment that I wasn't touching him. Q said he was tired. I moved to a different chair and stroked his cheek, held his hand. He fell asleep. More hospital people asked questions, saw my shining eyes. "Is he okay?" "I thought he was dying." They didn't stay long.
I waited until I thought my wife was about 30 minutes out of town, in case she was driving fast. I didn't want her to get home and worry, but I didn't want her to have to drive worried either. "Where are you?" I asked. About where I expected. "First, Q is fine... We're in the emergency room..."
There were things I would have done different if I'd had a rehearsal for Q's seizure, but I never saw it coming. I would have checked his breathing more thoroughly. Maybe he was breathing shallowly the whole time and I missed it. I think I would have been more calm if someone else had been there to panic, but I'm glad that no one else has to have memories of when they thought Q was dead. I am so thankful that the other two kids weren't there to hear my shrieks and pleas so that they can still believe, for a while yet, that there are no situations I can't handle.
Some people seemed concerned about the epilepsy diagnosis, but I told them that didn't bother me at all. "I thought my son was dead. I don't care what he has. Q is alive."
I tried to keep Q from knowing the worst details of his first seizure. He remembers playing cards and then being in the ambulance, nothing in between. Even the ambulance trip is fuzzy for him. But he must have heard me saying that I thought he had died because the next day when I got home from work he came into the garage, smiled at me, and asked, "Daddy, are you happy I'm not dead?" "More than you can imagine," I said, holding myself together until he went back into the house
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