10 May 2010

Today I was invited to read my short story “Big Trees” at Hamline’s Fulcrum Showcase. The Fulcrum is a book of student works that the university publishes yearly. They had an indie-folk band playing before the event began, there was artwork on display, and five people got up and read their work.

The entire book, as far as I can tell, features only two short stories, the rest is all visual art and poetry. I was invited to read my work first and then, after I sat down, the next four people each got up in turn and read their poems. My story, thought not that long, was longer than any of the poems. I swear I was up at the microphone for 10 minutes, and the other four poems probably took a combined total of 7 or 8 minutes to read. So, I unintentionally dominated the presentations.

I participated in a similar event 19 years ago. I submitted my short story “Slaughter in the Family Room” to my high school’s yearly literary book. When I received an invitation in the mail, inviting me to attend a banquet for the release of the book, I didn’t think I’d go, but my mom wanted to go. So she and I dressed up nice, and – I swear – that was the only extracurricular event I ever attended in high school (I didn’t even go to my graduation ceremony).

On both occasions, I was disappointed to see that there were errors in my work. Earlier this year, after I’d received word that my work had been accepted for publication, I wrote back a few weeks later asking if there was anything I needed to fix in my story. The editor wrote back and said she didn’t recall seeing any errors. Then I wrote back saying there were at least three. She never wrote back and, today, while reading my story, I stumbled over the errors. The first two were no big deal – one concerned punctuation and the other spelling. But the third error concerned a missing word, and that tripped me up. Afterwards, the editor came over and apologized for not fixing that error. She also said: “And I need to apologize for something else, too.” She showed me the back of the book where it lists all the authors…except me. “I have no idea how your name got cut off,” she said, pointing out that there was even a space for my name. I told her I know how my name got cut off: because it’s alphabetically last (as usual). She understood what I meant, as she has the same last name as me. Oh well.

On the way home, Jennifer and I wondered why editors don’t do any editing anymore.

11 May 2010

So, I was going to write about my trip to the dentist today, but I’ll save that for my next check-up 6 months from now. Instead, I’ll write about three things that happened this evening.

I took Owen to the Mall of America today in an effort to give Jennifer some quiet time to finish her homework. Yes, I realize bringing my kid to the mall is lousy parenting, but the weather was awful for visiting a park, and zoos and museums are too expensive.

1. They have mini-golf at the Mall once again! Yay! It was way better (and less expensive) than the mini-golf place at the Burnsville Center, which has an obnoxious ball dispenser, and really lame holes with nothing interesting besides black lights.

Anyway, this family of six bought a round of golfing shortly after Owen and I. Despite their large group, they soon caught up to us. At first, I wondered how they managed to do that, but then I realized: they weren’t really playing golf. The dad and mom were just taking their kids around, disrespecting the order of the holes, to play where ever they felt like it. I set my ball on the tee for the 4th hole, and right as I was about to putt, this 3 year old (?) girl comes walking across my path. No big deal, I know little kids do those things, but the father just followed along with her, and they walked over to a spot about 12 inches from the hole, and began putting from there. I meanwhile, just stood there and stared.

Later, while Owen and I were at hole 10 and they were at hole 9, they just walked on past us to hole 11. Then they past up a few other groups, evidently in search of a free hole. At one point, I think on hole 15, I looked up and saw the couple ahead of us were just standing around. “Are you guys taking a break?” I asked them. The guy said, “No, we’re waiting for them,” and he pointed to a couple ahead of him and his wife. And who was that couple waiting for? Yep, the family of six.

Incidentally, the only hole-in-one (or “homerun” as Owen called it) of the game was Owen’s. I wasn’t even watching, but the couple in front of us was, and I guess his ball just traveled right down the green and into the hole. I missed my one opportunity for a hole-in-one when my ball actually went over the hole because a little boy’s foot was in the hole.

2. While waiting in line to buy ice cream, I noticed I was being stared at. It took a second to register, but finally recognized the staree as John, a Witness from my former congregation. Once I realized who it was, I waved to him, and he just kind of reverse-nodded at me (you know, the kind where someone lifts their head up instead of down). “How you doing?” I asked him. We were about 10 feet away, but I couldn’t get any closer, as I did not want to leave my spot in line, and I think he was waiting for his wife to pay for her ice cream. He nodded again. I think he said “good.” Then he turned around and started walking away.

Poor guy. I feel bad for Witnesses like that, who are torn between their conscience and their religion. John will have to get over that if he ever wants to be an elder.

3. Minutes later, while I was paying for our ice cream, the cashier looked down at Owen (who had a mouthful of food) and said: “Hey, little squirt, you should thank your dad for that ice cream.” He didn’t really understand what she was saying; I don’t think he’s ever heard the word ‘squirt’ applied in that way, and I don’t think he even knew that she was talking to him because, after all, adults almost never talk to kids that they don’t know. I smiled at Owen and said, “do you like your ice cream, buddy,” but he was too shy to answer. Then the cashier said: “I’ll give your Daddy a dollar off if you say thank you.” So then, desiring the discount, I looked at Owen again and said: “Say thank you.” He said it real quiet, real sheepish.

I know why she gave me the dollar off. Because those folks at Cold Stone have a tip jar sitting out (which seems really stupid to me – why should I give a 15%+ tip for that?) and they really prostitute themselves out in an effort to get that cash. I was going to throw the extra buck in the jar, but then I thought: “No way, this lady pissed me off.” No tip for her.

Here’s the deal: it’s not the Cold Stone cashier’s job to teach my son manners. If I wanted to guilt him in to morality, I would raise him religious. My son is not the kind of person who thanks me instantly upon receiving something like that. He’s usually overwhelmed out in public, anyways. He’s more they type who, while lying in bed that evening, will say: “Thank you for bringing me to the mall today, Daddy.” In fact, he’ll even thank me at times that I don’t feel it was warranted. Like the other day, I was pushing him on the swing at the playground, and he said: “Thanks for pushing me.” And, at any rate, I don’t really think I need to be thanked for everything anyways. Forcing those words out of someone renders them sterile. There are other, more meaningful way to connote gratitude.

08 May 2010

We dropped Owen off at his grandparents’ home this afternoon. His grandparents have suddenly surged ahead in the coolness department thanks to their acquisition of a Wii. This causes Owen to want to visit with them even more. He must figure, “heck, I got lots of grandparents…but only one Wii.”

I just gotta mention how much it is possible to accomplish without a four and eleven-twelfths year old under foot. Jennifer and I made significant progress on our final papers for the semester. The dishes are clean, the carpets are vacuumed, the laundry is clean, the bird feeder is full, the plants are watered, the shelves are dusted, and the litter box is de-littered. Jennifer and I even went out to lunch and, as the sappy romantics we are, we chose Applebee’s.

Did you know Applebee’s is actually named for T.J. Applebee’s? I didn’t know that. There was some stained-glass artwork in the particular location, though, that tipped me off to this fascinating bit of trivia. (Question: is there any bit of trivia that’s not fascinating? Answer: yes.) A friend visiting from Germany once asked me what the word “applebees” meant. I told him I did not know, but that the apostrophe indicated it was someone’s last name. Now I know even more.

This reminds me of my 4th favorite job: Lenscrafters. Did you know the place is actually called “Precision Lenscrafters”? I didn’t know that until after I’d gotten hired and worked there for a week. I asked one of my co-workers: “Why are all the stores called ‘PLC’ and then a number?” And he said: “‘Cause ‘PLC’ stands for Precision Lenscrafters, and the number is the number of the store, so this is the 581st Lenscrafters to open.” Then I said: “Cool.” And he said: “No, it’s not really.”

Also, did you know this: Ikea is actually an acronym, so I guess it should always be written as IKEA. The letters stand for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd, which I think is a Swedish curse.

09 May 2010

This morning, around 10:00, there were two guys out in the parking lot playing with a remote-controlled toy car. The both had the backs of their pick-up trucks open, and they kept fiddling with the little car, then setting it back down and driving it around. Let me say for the record: I hate those things. They’re louder than real cars, which is bad enough, but the sound they make is akin to a dentist’s drill. Squealing, whining, incessant screeching.

At one point, one of the guys (the one with the baseball cap on, not the one with the bald eagle t-shirt), picked up the car, and took a piece off of it. He then shook up a can of spray paint and, leaning on a lamppost, sprayed the piece a beautiful black. In doing so, he vandalized the lamppost, too, but he might not have seen that beyond his third-trimester belly.

They left, but returned about 4 hours later, and played with their car again. My wife walked out on the deck and said: “Do you know how annoying that is?” The bald-eagle shirted fat hick looked up and said: “Sorry.” Which, no, he wasn’t, as was evident from the fact that they continued to play with their car for another ten minutes.

Whenever I see or hear those obnoxious toy cars, I instantly snap back to my first encounter with them. At the risk of hearing “You’ve told me that story, like, ten times,” from my wife again, I will hereby relate it once more:

When I was 14, my family moved to a new home. That summer, we discovered our neighbors (with whom we shared a driveway) had one sole interest in life: racing their toy cars around the pavement. They did it ALL the time, one weekends and weekdays. Even in the rain. Every morning, around 9:00, they’d open their garage door, and these two fat drunks would sit in lawn chairs, drinking swill and racing cars. They’d quit around dusk time, as if they knew that continuing any further would bring the cops down on them

My bedroom, alone of my family’s, did not face the driveway, but theirs did, and my parents and sister came to despise our new neighbors. Even with the windows closed, they could hear the cars. We had just moved out of a mobile home park…so you could imagine our surprise that our most hillbilly neighbors to date were these guys. There were even a few times we had to come to a complete stop while driving into our driveway so that they could move their toys our of our way. My mom would say: “You should just run them over.” But my Dad never did.

Instead, he was bemoaning the situation to my Uncle Danny one day. Uncle Danny, incidentally, has always had the coolest electronic gadgets of anyone in my family. He had a VCR before the 80s began!  Anyway, he took my Dad into his workshop, and gave him some kind of special “interrupter” that could cycle through different frequencies until it happened on the correct channel.

That weekend, while eating breakfast, I heard the toy cars being fired up. My Dad flew down the stairs, grabbed the gadget, and went out into the garage. I went in to join him, but he told me no. Peaking through a little hole in the garage, my Dad tuned the knobs on the interrupter until -suddenly – silence. Both cars stopped dead. The neighbors lumbered off the lawn chairs and sauntered to the cars, picked them up, and scratched their red necks. They carried their electronic carcasses into their garage, did some stuff with a screwdriver, swapped out some batteries, and prayed to Lynyrd Skynyrd. But they couldn’t resurrect their babies.

A few days later, they were back at it, but within minutes, my dad arrested their fun.

By next spring, they’d moved out.

06 May 2010

For the third month in a row, I accompanied Jennifer to her appointment with her midwife. I first went in March with the idea that I would get to hear the baby’s heartbeat. But, no dice. Neither the midwife nor her apprentice could find the beat. So I went again in April and, still, no detection of a heartbeat. And today, for the third time, I left without getting to hear kid #2’s pulse. I’m beginning to think that maybe this new baby does not have a heartbeat, which would mean that it’s probably a robot. Which, you know, is great. I mean, I wouldn’t be disappointed. It’s just that we already have a robot.

Then there’s the ongoing discussions of what to name the cyborg. We narrow the choices drastically before we even think of names we do like:

-No names of people in our family (Stan, Dan, Diane)

-No names that are too popular (Emma, Ethan, Madison)

-No bible names (Jacob, Mary, Melchizedek)

-No names that form unfortunate semordnilaps (Tara, Natasha, Dennis)

Actually, though I like to think these are established ‘rules,’ we continually waver on these and have considered names in at least three of the above four categories.

A couple of names that have been suggested to me are Luke and Beru, for a boy and a girl, respectively. Luke, of course, violated the anti-bible name policy, above, and Beru is, well, just weird. The upside is that they are both from Star Wars, as is Owen – in fact, they are all names from the same family within the Star Wars universe. But though it appears we glean our names from fictional texts, this isn’t a must. In the case of Owen, actually, it was only after I’d considered the name for a few days that I suddenly realized it was the name of a Star Wars character. Owen’s middle name is likewise from a movie (The Unsinkable Molly Brown), but it’s not as if we named Owen after the character Sheamus in that horrible motion picture. Rather, we were just watching it one evening, I heard the character’s name, and said: “Hey, that’d be good for our kid’s middle name.” Jennifer pointed out that she’d already mentioned that name a few months earlier, but I’d somehow forgotten. And now, once again, it appears that the front-runners for girl’s first and middle name are from movies, as is the front runner for boy’s middle name. Perhaps if we have a boy we will give him the first name Lando.

07 May 2010

Upon hearing a Bob Dylan song on the radio today, I once again returned to this conundrum:

Is there any Bob Dylan song in which he himself performs the best version (apart from songs wherein he has done the ONLY version)? I mean, think about it:

My Back Pages: better by the Ramones

Don’t think Twice, It’s Alright: better by the Four Seasons

Blowin’ in the Wind: better by Peter, Paul and Mary

The Times They are a-Changin’: better by Simon and Garfunkel

Mr. Tambourine Man: better by the Byrds

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door: better by Eric Clapton

All Along the Watchtower: better by U2, but smokingly awesome by Jimi Hendrix.

There. Granted, I’m not well-versed in the tenets of Dylan’s catalog, but in every case where I know the song, and am aware of at least one cover, the cover triumphs.

Also today:

On MPR, in between their protracted, pandering, phony pleas for dollars (an odd thing to ask for after airing news reports on how lousy the economy is), they used the term “six state area.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term “six-state area.” I’ve often heard the term “five-state area,” a reference to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas and which, when I was a kid, presumed was some kind of comradship we had with our neighbors. But as I aged, I realized that such a term varied depending on the context. I mean, sure, those five states seem like a team when you’re living near the center of them, but does someone in, say, Rapid City, South Dakota really feel they’re part of some five-state conglomerate with the folks in Milwaukee?

Last summer, while in Iowa, I saw an add that mentioned the “tri-state” area; a term I immediately took to mean Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. But, looking more closely at the ad, I discovered the reference was to Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Wow, talk about a paradigm shift in the way I looked at the world. Now I’ve come to see the reference to any group of states must be clearly understood in the text, or by obvious geography. For example, I’m sure that anyone in Maine understands the “two-state area” to be Maine and New Hampshire. But, otherwise, define your parameters!

So, today, when I heard “six-state area” without an accompanying definition, I was left to wonder: which six states do they mean? Minnesota, for sure, but what else? My guess is North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. Makes perfect sense.

04 May 2010

Today at my job, while hard at work in my cube, a announcement came over the intercom saying to evacuate the building. “This is not a drill,” this disembodied voice said. So I got up, began walking out, and was soon swept up in a sea of people.

Along with some of my co-workers from my department, I headed towards the rendezvous point in the parking lot. There were five of us from my department and, after standing around for five minutes, we began to wonder where the other members of our department were. Turns out, they were still in the lab, as the intercom system is a little too quiet to be heard in there. Let’s hope that gets corrected. One of my co-workers phoned into the lab and told everyone to get out, but about five minutes later, they called another co-worker to see if the first co-worker was serious. So…um, definitely some room for communication improvement.

Turns out, there was a bomb threat. While security and some bomb-sniffing canines cased the building, we stood up on a hill beyond the parking lot. I gotta say, whoever made the threat pretty much picked the most perfect day ever. It wasn’t too hot or too cold (a serious concern when people are rushing out without grabbing their coats), it wasn’t raining, and the wind was minimal. Had the threat been phoned in yesterday or tomorrow, it would’ve interfered with some time-sensitive sampling I’m doing. Which, of course, doesn’t matter to me in the moment, but would’ve meant a lot more paperwork.

All told, we were out of the building for over three hours, though one of those hours was just our lunch break. Not quite as exciting as the time I showed up for work at Lenscrafters, discovered no one could even get into the store due to a cut power cable, then was sent home for the day with full pay. But a close second.

05 May 2010

I have often contended that my performance in any given class is weakest on the second assignment. Here’s why:

When the first assignment is due, I have little idea what the instructor wants. I mean, I know what he/she instructed us to do, but it’s tough to know what their particular ‘style’ is. The further removed from pure logic (=math) the class subject is, the more it is crucial to know what sort of ‘style’ the instructor wants. But at least the first assignment is the easiest. So, I just sort of fly blind and do the best I can at the first and easiest assignment.

But then it comes assignment #2. If the instructor has returned paper #1 to me, then I now have a partial picture of what they expect (though my sample set is only 1). But if they didn’t, then I’m still lost. Also, assignment #2 is a lot harder; class is in full swing now and there’s no more pussyfooting around.

I could give lots of boring examples of how assignment #1 was spoon-fed to the class, and how assignments #3 – #10 (or whatever) were just exercises in giving the teacher what he/she wants. But I’ll save you the boredom.

So, as you can see, assignment #2 is the trickiest one. And, again, I could give many examples of how my second task in a class represented my worst performance. But I won’t.

As you can imagine, then, in my current class it has been very difficult for me to turn in papers #3, #4, #5 and #6 without having received back paper #2. I mean, I had paper #1 back for over a month, but she really held our hand through that one. Today, finally – more than three months after class began! – I received back paper #2. I eagerly turned to the last page to see my grade.

It’s funny, a couple of weeks ago, while in a small group, one of my classmates asked me what grade I was getting in class. I laughed. “Well,” I said, “I got an A- on the first paper, but that’s all I know so far.” She laughed, too, realizing we didn’t have much to base our performance on, even though we’d completed three months of the semester. I mean, I had somewhat of an idea; part of our grade is based on attendance (mine’s been perfect) and another part of the grade is based on participation, and I feel I’m one of the three or four most vocal students in class. Just wish that guy in front of me would stop commenting so much. He’s really making it difficult to shine. I’m supposed to be the class Hermione – not him! Oh well.

Anyway, A.

02 May 2010

Planning Owen’s birthday party has been uncharacteristically hard work this year. Of course, we’ve known since the start of the year that his birthday would correspond with finals week, so we were already concerned with how we’d adequately fit in both activities. So, several months ago, we thought we’d just go ahead and hold his party at some party room somewhere.

But this isn’t as good as it seems. For one thing, those places are expensive. For another thing, they all have crazy restrictions, like a (stupidly low) limit on number of people, or a restriction on bringing in outside food. One of Owen’s classmates had the celebration part of their party (you know – cake and presents) just at a random table at a community center, then we all went downstairs to a play area. This seemed like a good idea to me, as it gave the kids a fun place to play without having to pay for a party room reservation, but further research led me to conclude this was risky business, as there’s no guarantee we’d be able to find an empty spot to hold the party, and the play area downstairs could be filled to capacity and we could be turned away.

We thought of Choo Choo Bob’s Train Store, which is pretty relaxed in the restrictions department and, mercifully, not crazy expensive. But…they’re booked. We could have held his party there on the 23rd (over a week after his birthday), but it would’ve had to have been in the morning. Yuck.

We tried one of the local city parks, too, but they’re totally booked. It’s tough competing with Mother’s Day and graduation season. The other thing that worries me about booking a pavilion is the weather. It has been known to rain (and snow!) in May.

Why not just have the party at our place, you ask? Two reasons: 1) we only have about 10 square feet of usable space, and since we wanted to invite some of Owen’s classmates this year, we feared our home would be standing room only. And 2) getting back to finals week: it’d be quite tough to clean and decorate during the same week we’re trying to finish up some big projects.

Owen’s party will be held at his grandparents’ home this year.

03 May 2010

So…I don’t normally advocate destroying media…but I made a big exception today.

While cleaning out my car, I came upon a cassette tape I hadn’t seen in years. Back in 2002 and 2003, I worked in Oakdale, which was about a half hour drive from my townhome in Apple Valley. There was this woman in my congregation who listened to the Watchtower and Awake! on tape in her car and, when she heard I had a longer commute, she offered to give me the cassettes she’d finished with. I listened to some of them in the car but (and this probably goes without saying), they were boring. Sometimes the Awake! magazine had some interesting articles related to history or science, but I never listened to the Watchtower. I tossed them in my backseat, and got rid of them sometime later.

Except for the Watchtower from August 15, 2003, which somehow managed to slide itself under the backseat and hide from detection for over six years.

When I brought it in the house today, laughing about what I’d found, Owen said he wanted to listen to it. I told him it wasn’t music, and he said “oh.” I was going to just throw it in our garbage but – not wanting to pass up an opportunity for learning, I instead fished out the spool of tape and handed Owen the cassette.

“Go walk down the hall,” I said, “let’s see how much tape is in one of these cassettes.”

He walked down the hall, laughing. When he got to our bedroom door, I said: “I think you’re gonna have to open the door and keep going.” He did, and then when he got to the far wall, I looped the tape around a chair and walked down the hall to meet him; the tape de-spooling as I went. Then I grabbed his end of the tape, and had him walk back. When he got down to the kitchen, he asked if the tape was done, but I pointed out it wasn’t even half done. Not knowing where else we could go, I just instructed him to run around the kitchen, into the dining room, through the living room, back towards me, then round and round again and again. Though he snagged the tape on some dishes, a chair, and a couple plants, nothing was ruined.

I was pleased to, at last, find some educational value in the Watchtower.

Here, Owen is holding the bulk of the tape that we de-spooled running up and down the hallway. On the left side of the photo, you can see the tape emanating out from from my hand – each line of tape runs at least 12 feet – past the dishwasher, sink, counter, then into the living room in front of the TV. The cassette itself can be seen, still attached, dangling right in front of me.

Look at all that tape! Owen is clearly enamored with this activity.

Owen took this picture, wherein I placed some of the tape on my head like a wig. My first thought upon seeing this photo was “Man, he takes some lousy pictures.” But on further consideration, I think this is how sees the world – in a continuous frenetic blur – and he’s just documenting it as accurately as he can.