As part of my efforts to be viewed as a non-shitty parent, I walk with Owen to his jiu jitsu class on Monday evenings. It’s only three blocks from the Zimmerman Compound and, when he first enrolled, he walked there himself. But that was September, and our slice of the planet hadn’t turned away from the sun by 6:00PM. But in January, it’s already dark. It’s dark all the time. January is the worst month.

In the brief time it took us to cover the distance, Owen said, “Know a funny thing? I can remember the first day of fourth grade, but not fifth grade or sixth grade! Isn’t that weird?”

Hm. I considered this for a moment. It was indeed weird. Owen’s fourth grade was neither the first nor the last year at his school. It wasn’t his first woman teacher (it was his fifth one in a row), nor was it his most recent school year.

“Really?” I said, incredulous. “You sure you don’t remember the first day of sixth grade? That was just a few months ago.”

“I can’t think of it,” he said, noticing that the memory was somewhere in his brain, like a lost book shoved behind other books on a shelf, but that he simply couldn’t access it.

“What was so special about fourth grade? What happened on that first day?”

“You know. The teacher just said hi and talked and stuff.”

“Yeah…”

“And then she had us all sit in a circle on the floor,” he explained, and then noted that this was the teacher’s method of introducing everyone to everyone else.

Of course, Owen had sat in a circle lots of times before, most notably in preschool and kindergarten. But by fourth grade, such circular kumbaya-ing seemed to juvenile for Owen and the other nine-year-olds, so the action of doing something unexpected created a solid pattern in Owen’s neurons that he can still easily recall over two years later.

He asked if I could recall any first days of school. My mind scrambled to recall which school I attended for which grade. I quickly thought about seventh, my first year of junior high, and twelfth, the most recent year of public school I had in my mind. where did those memories go? Why couldn’t I access them? What happened in the interim that caused thirteen first days to merge with the hundred other regular school days from each year. Yes, I could picture my science teacher from seventh grade, who gave me a pencil sharpener I still had mounted on my wall, I could remember that paunchy, bearded biologist from eleventh grade that uncomfortably asserted evolution was true, and I could recall the beautiful student teacher from second grade, who smelled of flowers ( a pleasant juxtaposition from the rest of the staff, who incessantly reeked of coffee), always wore cowgirl boots, had flowing blonde hair, and no thumbs. But considering kindergarten through twelfth grade for a moment, I could really only remember one: tenth grade.

“Really? Tenth? Why?”

I explained that that was my first day in a new school district. It was also my first day of high school. I didn’t know anyone. What’s more, the bus dropped me off at the doors a full half hour prior to the first bell. While other students convivially hobnobbed, or smoked in the parking lot, or slept on the floor in the library, I merely stopped at my locker, dropped off what I didn’t need right away, then walked to my first class. I turned on the lights, sat at a desk in the back row, and stared off at the bland room for ten minutes, until another student arrived. She didn’t even nod in my direction. Just sat in a seat a decent distance from me, opened a compact, checked her hair, and flipped through a notebook.

“Why were you so early?” Owen wanted to know.

“I don’t know. The bus came early all through tenth and eleventh grade. After a while, I learned to go hang out in the library and I scrambled to finish my homework or I just looked at the books, and there was this other guy I would sit and talk to for a while.”

“Do you remember any other years?”

“Well, I remember the first day of college, but that was a lot more recent. That was in 2000.”

“What!” he blurted. “You’ve been going to college since 2000?”

“Well, no. Remember, first I went to Century College. I went there from 2000 to 2002, then after I got my degree I didn’t go to college again until 2009. So that whole time we lived in Big Lake – back when you were born, I didn’t go. Even once we moved to St. Paul, it was still over a year before I started at Hamline.”

“Still, that’s a long time.”

“I know. But I’m taking it slow.”

Then Owen ran off into the rec center to attend jiu jitsu, and I was left trying to recall my first day of kindergarten. I can remember certain images, certain features, and vague recollection of a class discussion on December ninth of my kindergarten year. I know my teacher’s name and, if you dropped me in the foyer of my elementary school, I could walk assuredly to my former classroom. After all, I was at that school for five years, seeing my kindergarten teacher in the hall and passing by her room long after I’d moved on to higher grades, all the way up to fourth grade.

And then it hit me, I remember my first day of fourth grade, too.

I get on these self-improvement kicks. If, by “improvement” I mean “indulgent.” Right now, I’m on this kick of watching lots of movies.

Every once in a while, I remember that I haven’t seen all of IMDb’s Top 250, or that there are still films on Sight & Sound’s top 50, or in Sackett’s Box Office Hits that I’d like to see. And then this gets me all revved up to satisfy my completest desires. This month, I’ve already viewed 15 films for the first time, and I am rationally confident that I’ll eclipse 20 by 11:59 on the 31st.

I can pinpoint the reason why I got on this particular kick. It’s because I keep all sorts of lists about my life. And the answer to “why now?” is because, every January, I need to update my lists.

Of course, some of the lists don’t need updating just because the new calendar year began. My lists of People I’ve Live With, Cars I’ve Owned, and Times I’ve Been on an Airplane don’t suddenly change just because the calendar did. Actually, the list of People I’ve Lived With hasn’t changed since Emmett was born over two years ago. Sort of. The final column in that lists indicates my duration of cohabitation with said person, but I have that column indexed to the World Clock, so simply opening that file on my computer updates it to the precise number of days I’ve lived with a given person.

Honestly, I derive a singular chunk of happiness from maintaining these lists – the point, even, that I will behave in a manner that allows me to alter a list to my liking. For example, when I first created my list of Professional Baseball Games I Have Attended, I had only been to four MLB games: two in the 1980s, and two in the 1990s. Over the next decade, I added two more games to the list.

It was then that I noticed something: I had attended two MLB games every decade. Each time, it was a Twins’ game, but they played a different team each time. Obviously, then, I knew I had to attend two Twins games in the 2010s, and that I should strive to ensure they play against teams I’ve not seen yet. So now I’ve been to 8 MLB games, two in each decade, with the Twins playing the White Sox, Tigers, Rangers, Orioles, Yankees, Royals, Athletics, and Indians; respectively. The Twins currently hold a 5-3 lead in their “Games with James” series.

And since the Twins are not the only professional baseball team within sane travel distance, I also track my attendance at Saints games. I only attend Saints games in Leap Years, to the point that I even turned down a friend to accompany him at a game in 2015. Sorry, Eric, you were a year early.

But January does mean I have to update my Timeline of My Life, in which each month is given its own row, and I color in cells to indicate life events that transpire over several months (such as employment, or places of residence) and fill in major life events (such as graduating, children, and vacations). It also means I have to update my Ultimate Calendar, in which I briefly note interesting activities in my life, and I bold line in between each year, and assign each year the next in a series of four rotating colors. 2017 is yellow. 2016 was green. It also means I have to update my Word of the Year list. I list one or two words or terms that I became aware of or that grew in importance for me over the past year. Terms I’ve listed in years gone include Flyboat, Doula, Geocaching, Dunnage, and KonMarie.

Ensuring my files were in an acceptable state for 2017 drew my attention to my list of movies and, well, here I am watching films nearly every night. Except tonight, since I am updating this. I know that just sounds like I’m spending my

On the first full day after the bad guy became our nation’s 45th figurehead, Jennifer attended a Women’s March downtown. She says that now’s the time to make a difference in the world, to be kind to people, volunteer, stand up for what’s right, and take action. So, with a knitted hat emblazoned with NASTY, I dropped off my wife and her mother this morning to go out and make a difference.

Meanwhile, I kept three kids fed and calm while attempting to maintain a modicum of sanity. I took Owen to Lego League. The season is over for them, but they had one more meeting to say goodbye for the season. I filmed the boys’ robot run, while trying to keep Isla and Emmett quiet and happy.

Later, I took Isla to a kitchen to make food for homeless people. We arrived with a can of corn, a can of beans, and four onions, which Isla carried in a weird mermaid bag.

The other volunteers could, I think, sense that I wasn’t their altruistically, despite Jennifer’s decree. One of them, recognizing me from last spring, said, “Hey, you didn’t wait until the end of the school year this time, did you?” She was referring to the fact that Isla, as per her school’s policy, is supposed to engage in some sort of community volunteer work during the school year. Being a competent father, I waited until about six weeks before the end of the school year, and took her to this kitchen to help make food.

In the evening, Jennifer declared she was spent and frazzled and not able to do anything else for the next day or so. I prevailed upon her to make popcorn, though. As she was pouring the popcorn from the big mixing bowl into smaller serving bowls, I said, “Just leave some in that big bowl, and I’ll use that one.” I figured that was a way to save on dishes. “Just leave me alone,” she snapped, “I’ve already got all the bowls out. I’ll wash them, anyways.”

Today turned out to be a completely boring day. Despite Jennifer’s reiterated comment that she didn’t want to do anything today, she listed off five things that she needed to do. I offered to do some of them, in exchange for her putting a coat of paint on the trim that’s sitting out in the basement, but she got mad and reminded me she had told me not to ask her to do that. So, it was an unpleasant day.

A lazy day, too. That, of course, does fit in with my goal of being lazier this year, but I find it tough to implement in practice. I farted around the house, taking care of very tiny things – I prided myself in putting away a few papers into the file cabinet, and boldly deciding I no longer needed our tax papers from 2008. Later, I wiped the dust off some picture frames.

For lunch, we all had leftovers. I had the remainder of our potato casserole, and as I was about to scoop it into a plate, Jennifer said, “You can just eat it out of that bowl, to save on dishes.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “good idea.” So I did. Then I washed all the dishes.

Later, Jennifer went to the grocery store. I stayed home all day and that, in an fundamental way, tells me I should view today as a good day, but it wasn’t. I went to bed early, fixing my blankets just right, I curled up and turned over under my heavy blanket, tried to read some Wikipedia on my phone, got bored, went to sleep.

If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power. -P.J. O’Rourke

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” -Isaac Asimov

Maybe January isn’t the worst month. This is the only month this year in which the United States has a competent, qualified President. For two-thirds of it, anyway.

In the days following the election back, what struck me most was not the collective crying and worrying on social media. There was plenty of that. A coworker asked – to anyone reading – how was she going to tell her little daughter that the bad guy won? My mother-in-law confessed to having lied awake that night crying at the electoral results. Jennifer’s midwife wrote that she was heartbroken, especially given that her poor health likely means she will never vote in another presidential election. My oldest friend washed his hands of the situation and said he was leaving for a while.

What struck me most wasn’t the Electoral College, either. In the days that followed, some people bemoaned its very existence. My wife suggested the Electors will be faithless against the presumptive nominee, but I told her the vast majority will simply fall in line, thus proving the ineffectiveness of their position. A coworker lamented she wasn’t sure – “I can go either way,” she said, regarding the continued existence of the College. I said no. “It’s an anachronism that is long past its expiration date.” Like blue laws, no American would seriously advocate for it if it didn’t already exist. Blowhards on talk radio asserted that the College was wonderful, and those who are against it are only against it because their candidate lost. For the record, no. I’m against it either way. Jennifer said maybe this will get people to finally abolish this archaic institution so that we can move closer to a true democracy. “No,” I said, “no one moved to deconstruct it in 2000. Why would now be any different?”

What struck me most wasn’t the surprising turn of a nearly inevitable assumption. On our walk to the polling station, Jennifer stopped Owen and Isla on the sidewalk and said, “You guys have to remember this day. We are going to elect the first woman president. You have to tell your children about this one day – that you were part of it!” Owen pointed out that, at 11 years old, he’s disenfranchised and thus, technically, not a part of it. But that didn’t stop us from snapping photos, including one of Jennifer and Isla with their arms around each other, post-voting, with “I Voted” stickers affixed to their jackets. That evening, as we dined, I opened my laptop and tried to calm my nervous wife – “Look at this chart,” I showed her, pointing out a list of the states by their recent polling. “Clinton will win everything in this column, and she only has to win one or two states in this other column – and most of those went for Obama in 2012.” I even prepared a graphic to post online. Titled “Our Presidents,” it displayed four rows of men – the simple, rounded shouldered, neckless men that adorn the doors of public restrooms. One was slightly fatter, to indicate Taft. One was in a wheelchair, and the penultimate figure was black, both for obvious reasons.  The final figure, though, was the woman figure. Similar to the man figure, but with a skirt, or maybe it’s a superhero cape.

No.

What struck me most was that no one could honestly say, This is Good. This is a positive turn for our nation. One of my coworkers – a lifelong conservative – simply posted online that no candidate truly cares about us. A twenty-year-old I’ve known since he was born posted in naïve adolescent abandon how funny he found it that everyone was so upset; he didn’t care at all, he wrote, because it didn’t affect him. A Republican said the upside to this election is that hopefully it will get his party to nominate qualified, dignified candidates from here on out. Another Republican posted that, despite his incompetence, at least the winning candidate won’t stop Congress from repealing ObamaCare. Another Republican, who had posted oodles of glowing adoration for McCain, and a smattering of appreciation for Romney, posted nothing. Even the morning radio host, who hadn’t said a single laudable sentence about Clinton all year, said that Presidents are, after all, only figure heads, and at least the bizarre outcome kept out a woman we’re all tired of. Conservatives online and at work backpedaled – “Woah, I didn’t think he would win” – or apologized. “This doesn’t make me racist,” was an unnervingly celebratory chant. “It’s okay, Mama,” Isla said, “I will still remember this as a special day.”

In the days following, one of our Bernie-or-Bust friends confessed she just couldn’t bring herself to vote for Clinton. “She wanted Bernie or bust,” Jennifer said, “So I hope she’s happy with bust.” I told Jennifer I didn’t understand that logic. “It’s like, if I got back my draft paper from my professor and she wrote ‘C’ on it, and I said, ‘No, I deserve a B,’ and she said, sorry, you’re getting a C, and then, just to spitefully harm her, I didn’t turn in the final paper and ended up with an F.” Except, it didn’t harm the professor. It only harmed me.

I passed coworkers in the hall, who would respond to “How are you?” with “Oh, I’m hangin’ in there” or “I’m…okay,” with unusual gravity, as if they were really considering my innocuous query. One worker, with her usual gruffness that has always drawn me to enjoying her company, simply shrugged and asked, “How are you?” giving the last word a purposeful emphasis.

A few weeks later, my brother-in-law – w ho defended his vote by sharing a video of a woman bloviating how pleased she was with the election because “maybe some of us are tired of all the baby killing and the persecution of Christians” and something about being sick of the gay lifestyle being thrown in our faces and smart people thinking they know everything – invited Owen and me to go see Rogue One with him. I hate going to movie theaters nowadays. I didn’t feel much like being with my brother-in-law for four-plus hours. But it was Star Wars, Owen’s all-time favorite chunk of culture, and I knew at some point in the next 30 days I would be compelled to bring him to the theater. Twelve commercials in, my brother turned to me in his La-z-Boy theater seat, repositioned his pop-corn, and said, “You know, I just think we gotta see what he’s gonna do. He’s not even President yet, and people already on his case.” I wanted to say that his words were a contradiction from everyone who said the good thing about their candidate is that he tells it like it is. And I wanted to say that the candidates just completed a 12-month job interview, so if we don’t know what he’s “gonna do,” then we weren’t paying attention. And I wanted to say that the statements and cabinet picks since Election Day did not give me any reason to reassess my position on his incompetence, narcissism, and dismantling of the past decade’s progress.

But I didn’t want to create an awkward, tense bubble around us – especially when I was tethered to my seat for the next 2 hours and 33 minutes (3 hours and 33 minutes including commercials). Besides, Paul Simon’s The Werewolf was looping in my head, so I couldn’t really focus on what I wanted to say, anyway.

Martin Luther King, who was born on the third Monday of 1929, gets his own holiday today. That’s quite an honor; not too many people get their own holiday. Sure, Columbus gets one, but that one will probably be retired before I die. Jesus gets one, but he has to share it with Santa. George Washington – who unlike Columbus and Jesus, can actually make a strong claim for deserving one – gets one, too, but thanks to his birthday’s calendar proximity to Lincoln’s, his is being merged into a pan-Presidents’ Day, so we can also honor such luminaries as Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, and Gerald Ford. I once read an article arguing that Martin Luther King Day should be rebranded as Civil Rights Day, do allow for honoring of others who played – and do play – a role in bringing equality and justice to minorities. And I’m all for that.

From first- through ninth-grade, I had the day off of school. My mom said it seemed silly to have a day off school so soon after having a long winter break, but since I hated school I didn’t mind.

In tenth grade, I attended school on Martin Luther King Day for the first time. Several months earlier, my family and I had moved to a new home and a new school district, and since none of the staff of students were black, the lackeys in charge of Rosemount High School decided it should be business as usual. Oh, actually, they charged each teacher to spend the first 10 minutes of second hour talking about King and civil rights. It was worse than doing nothing, really.

In fact, the cover story of the next week’s school paper was an article by a student claiming the school’s sad attempt to honor King was a mockery – if we don’t get the day off, she wrote, fine. But at least let’s have an all-school assembly with local civil rights leaders or scholars talking to us about these issues or guiding us in celebrating how far we’ve come.

In eleventh grade, we got the day off.

By twelfth grade, I had permanently exited Rosemount over a month before mid-January rolled around, but I assume my classmates got the day off then, too.

Now I find myself feeling like my mom. I just had twelve straight days off of work. After less than two weeks, there’s already another holiday? Better, I feel, to save this holiday and give us off the day before or after Easter. Or Election Day. Or even the day after the Super Bowl. None of my coworkers, of those I’ve asked, do anything celebratory for the day. Jennifer and I just used it as a day to get caught up with house work, cleaning, and the kids.