Life in the Express Lane

I don't care what other's say, I love
your bagel imperfections.  

Sometimes in life, circumstances necessitate that you broaden your understanding of right vs. wrong.

Another fruitless visit to the supermarket during a hunger pang, my cart overflowing with calories, I decided against the donuts in favor of a bagel, and was feeling especially proud of myself. 

That feeling faded as I neared the checkout aisles and realized only the express lane looked favorable.  I quickly added up the items in my cart.  At least 20 items.  The limit was 12.  Oh well, I thought...five items are the same. I'm not really pushing the maximum.  

So, we're both sort of in the wrong...
Me with exceeding the limit, and
your store with its grammar.  

It's no different than driving 8 miles over the speed limit on the freeway. Everybody does it.  Some people bring their whole weeks worth of groceries through the express lane.  I wasn't doing that!

The lady in front was especially proud of her find.  One pound packages of ground sirloin beef for $3.99.  She had at least 8 packages of the meat.  The fear of a gout attack held me back from exiting the line and exploring the butcher department for more good deals.

I laid out my twenty-two items.  Sure, I didn't need all five different flavors of Jarritos Soda, but at .69 a bottle on sale, it was almost a crime not to try them.  I mean, I'm almost 40, and I've never tried ANY flavor of Jarritos.  That's a cultural crime. There is no food product besides maybe the chili relleno and some people's interpretation of guacamole, that Mexico hasn't perfected.  Sure, they seem stuck on like twenty different ingredients, but they've made lemonade out of what life gave them.

Well...better than Corona.  

I looked at the Hispanic Lime Limón soda, and wondered if it would taste like Sprite, and noticed that a little old man had joined the line behind me.

I loaded the last few items onto the conveyer belt and heard his grumbling.  He almost, almost, uttered actual words of discontent.  Perhaps he was senile, or had irritable bowel syndrome.  

He quickly grabbed the plastic divider bar that keeps our groceries from breeding with each other, and loaded his few items.  A handful of beets, a bunch of celery, and a head of cauliflower.  I think a genetic cross section of our combined items might have made mine healthier and his a little more edible.

I considered letting him cut in front of me in line.  Until I saw his face.  Every wrinkle in his chiseled eighty year old face was tightening in disdain for me.  He greying eyes passed right through me, as if I was a Korean soldier, and he an M2 flamethrowing GI.

I made this walker with tennis balls you brats hit over my
fence when playing wiffle-ball.  

Let it go, old man, the Korean War is over...I thought.  Now you're going to wait behind me.  I hope the checker lady has to do a price check.  

He made some more noises that could've been bile boiling in his gut, or some guttural sound that animals emit when you threaten their territory.  I wondered if it was his odd mix of vegetables that made him so hostile.  What could you possibly make with that concoction of veggies...a broth? A stew? A potion? I wondered if his wife was a witch.

Look, I'm sorry I exceeded the limit by 10 items.  I'm sorry that my digestive system still allows me to eat a bagel and a Mexican soda, and you have to eat alienated veggies. NO. No, I'm not sorry.  You're just a bitter old man.  A man with a radishy personality.  Now you know he WE feel when you drive 48 MPH on the freeway old man.  Yeah, it works both ways.  So stew in your own toxic fumes you judgmental old man. I'm not a bad person.  

I said next to nothing to the checkout lady. She didn't acknowledge that I had exceeded the limit. We passed pleasantries, I quickly paid by debit card, and grabbed my weighted down bag.  Five glass soda bottles was probably pushing its structural integrity.

"Hello Sandra," cooed the old man in voice like Tony Bennett. I turned to see a complete transformation.  The old man had morphed from malignant to genteel.

You get a merit badge for finding a use for radishes.    

"Oh, hello Charles, how are you today?"  Sandra, the middle-aged checker, whom I had failed to really notice in our interaction, brightened up.

I wanted to stay and eavesdrop on their conversation.  Maybe Charles would divulge the purpose behind his odd vegetable choices. Maybe Sandra was an old friend or relative, or maybe Charles was just a regular who had made a connection with a tired employee. I glanced, perhaps a second too long, at the authenticity of their moment.  They showed compassion for each other in the realness of their smiles.

Overstaying my welcome, I exited their scene. Maybe I had misread his face, his gestures, his sounds as displeasure. I was, sort of, in the wrong. What if I was the bad guy? No, not bad...just, inhospitable. I was guilty of the same judgement I thought he was giving me. I looked into my sack of ten extra items and nothing looked that good or that real, and realized I wanted a little more of what they had.

Start an Affirmation Day Tradition to Celebrate Those Closest To You.

"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it." -Dumbledore (movie only).

My Patronus would be a Skunk.  

While it's unclear whether J.K. Rowling wrote this line or if it was added by one of the many writers/producers in pre-production, it clearly symbolizes how she wanted her books/movies received. Words have power. Even in her world where dragons, trolls, magic wands, and ghosts flitter through the rooms, at the essence of what the series is about is human relationships.

Unlike Harry, I am blessed with a fantastic family that never locked me under the stairs. We are a family full of talented, loud, opinionated, funny, fun-loving, individuals that would drop everything to be there for each other. Yet, even with this unconditional love and guaranteed approval, we all still act like Dementors at times, casting Crucio curses at each other for no reason other than having a bad day.

It's not just us, it's an American thing. Think of the words we say about our President, our government, our Governor, our city council, our sports teams (when they are losing), our bosses, our friends (when they aren't in the room), our spouses...even our kids. We are a nation full of loose-lipped blasphemers that rarely find the time (or need) to apologize.

Even Potter struggled with this:

Harry: "Been having a nice little chat with her {Lavender} about whether or not I'm a lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?"

Hermione: "No, I told her to keep her {Lavender} big fat mouth shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down Ron and my throats, Harry, because if you haven't noticed, we're on your side."

So this year, after Foot-in-Mouth disease had infected many members of the family, and threatened to dismantle the Christmas season, we decided to combat the malady with a new holiday tradition: Ending the year with a session of positive words aimed at every member of the family--Affirmation Day.

Being affirmed, means strongly and publicly declaring one's support for, or defense of another's validity or existence. What greater gift can one give during the holiday break than to be 100% loved and validated by your closest kin, with only words meant in praise of your existence.

Some wrote a word or two, others a paragraph. I'm keeping mine.  

I'm not saying it was easy. We all had to write a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph of all the positive attributes of EVERY member of the family. We even did this for Eleanor (or Ellie as we call her), our 6 month old niece, who clearly will have no concept of the affirmation we just bestowed upon her. But it can, perhaps, be absorbed into her psyche. You don't have to be a believer in a Higher Power, like we are, or a Wiccan to understand that light or darkness can be imparted into other's lives by our choice. And we choose, as a family, to speak Life into each other.

So we bogged down, and spent a few hours writing and then sharing our words, sentences, and observations of others. Sometimes it was funny, as when my niece and nephew both choose "weird" and "crazy" to define me. I own those words. I am those words. I love that they chose those words to define me. Other times it was so emotionally overwhelming that it was hard to read out the words. Sometimes I heard words to describe my sisters or brothers-in-law that I wished I would've used myself; but by the end, after all 13 people had received their "anonymous" gifts of praise, nobody could possibly feel bad about themselves for at least a week.

My favorite line before and after the session, was when my 9-year-old niece said, "It's embarrassing, and hard to have people say nice things about you" (before we did the assignment), and afterwards saying, "It wasn't as hard as I thought, it actually felt quite nice to get compliments."

I don't know if it's sadder that we've conditioned ourselves to not receive compliments, or that we are so reluctant to give them out.

This world barely recognizes the light you bring to the world, and more often than not, tries to snuff it out. But this little Lumos light of ours? We're going to let it shine by praising those around me. We all could use a little Patronus on our side.

So this holiday and next, I encourage you to start your own Affirmation Day tradition. It might be awkward, and it might be difficult to think of nice things to say, but who else is going to do it?

What a better way to end the year, after all the drama, pain, frustration, and misplaced words, than to open a new chapter with the words that need to be shared? It's nice to know that somebody is on your side.

When you are comfortable with your family, it opens up opportunities for mockery. Like the flying LB bro-in-law.  

Say what you will, but this is all the evidence I need of God.  

Win Some, Lose Some, Sports Will Make You Worrisome.

The once great sportswriter Grantland Rice penned:

         "For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
         He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game."

I wrote the majority of a blog post last night and, when I woke up this morning to finish editing it, I discovered Blogger didn't save my draft. That hasn't happened to me in a long time. The "my computer ate my file," problem, that was so prevalent in the late 90s but which is almost obsolete now...(except, apparently to my current students).  

It's all for the better. The blog wasn't that good. It was some long, sad, diatribe about the my Oregon Ducks losing a big game. Big deal. Nobody cares about sports blogging, and besides,  I wrote the exact article last year when it happened to the same Stanford Cardinals (hardly anyone read it then).

It's funny what winning or losing will do to somebody.

Lately I've been playing a lot of Candy Crush (I know, how generic and 2012 of me)...but I guess I like challenges. So when I beat the game on the iPad (it only had 400 levels at that point), I was somewhat disgruntled to learn that the Facebook version had an addition 100 levels. Really? As if the first 400 weren't hard enough?  Oh well, I like challenges. So I logged onto my wife's Facebook account and annoyed her friends with my progression and requests and finally conquered the stupid game.

500 levels of mastery. I pwned that game.  (The Royal Interwebs Geek Gaming Etymology Decreers {RIGGED}: "uh, technically, your usage of pwned, or ownage, of a simple strategy game like Candy Crush, does not fit the specified parameters of the word's designed usage. Thank you for playing, but do not pass GO, do not collect $200").  Regardless of what relevant gamers think, beating the game is an accomplishment.

Funny how I don't feel like a winner. If anything, I feel more like a loser for spending so much time trying to master a game nobody cares about anymore.

It's ironic how the idea of winning a trophy, getting first place, always seemed like it would be some life-validating achievement, and yet it feels so empty. I played on so many losing teams in my youth that being on top of the world, like Leo DiCaprio, even for a few moments before crashing and sinking to the bottom of the sea, seemed like a worthy trade off.  

I mean, Leo did make it with Kate Winslet just hours before he froze to death in the frigid sea. Realistically Kate won, because Leo played chivalrous and allowed her to float on top of the plank. The things guys will do for love (or nookie). I wonder what goes through a male preying mantis' head before his mate devours him?

What if winning is actually losing. Definitely Charlie Sheen's idea of winning isn't plausible. Sure, some people out there think that doing blow and getting it on with random girls who had no daddy love seems life-affirming, but most of us call it sad. Sheen isn't winning, he's losing to addiction.

If this is winning, I'm fine with being a loser.  

Or maybe I'm superimposing my idea of success on Mr. Sheen. Maybe I find his lifestyle of deplorable debaucherous acts to be unfitting for a father of five children. I mean, Mr. Sheen is dating a porn star, and he just became a grandpa! (Maybe this is a dream to some Gen Xers and Boomers...maybe he is winning).

This whole article was predicated on the idea of my Ducks losing a big game. Ten years ago, this wouldn't mean much. We Duck fans were happy with a 9-3 season. A bowl game after Christmas was a big deal. We Eugenites were proud to be ranked in the top 25 at the end of the year as there are 120 different division 1 schools (that's top twenty percentile!). We are a metropolitan area of about 200,000 people. We don't deserve to be relevant on the national stage.

But fast forward ten years of unbelievable success (even without a title), and suddenly losing ONE game feels like being the biggest loser. Not going to the National Championship game is failure. Bandwagon fans are selling their flashy Duck gear on eBay. The Ducks have become an internet sports troll's favorite punching bag.

You can't win for losing. You can't win when your losing. Success breeds expectations. And success is fleeting. So why are we so in love with winning?  Why do we create unrealistic expectations and devote aspects of our identity in teams and players that we have no connection to?

Because we want to be winners. We want the euphoria of knowing that we are elite (even if we are only spectators to that greatness).  Those of us who aren't bandwagon fans (and true Oregon fans know our historic ineptitude) know how hard it is to achieve greatness or the almost inconceivable: perfection. And we know how close we were once again.

But maybe perfection and winning isn't the goal. Maybe some of us, like Charlie Sheen, have lost sight of what winning actually is?  Maybe Grantland Rice had a better idea in the stanza before the oft quoted one:

"You'll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart,
Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart.
And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack,
Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back."

How we played the game in the midst of turmoil and defeat defines who we are. In the movie Ender's Game, after being used and exploited to win a simulated war, Ender, in the midst of celebration, sees through the motives and perception of the people, and during the celebration breaks down emotionally.  ColonelGraff claims that winning is “all that matters.” No, Ender retorts, it’s not: “The way we win matters.”  

I'm not talking about sports, I never was. I always wanted a trophy, yet when I finally got one, I realized it is just cheap plastic. What I really wanted, what I really needed was affirmation of the One Great Scorer saying: "I don't care about the achievements, accolades, or trophies...but I do approve of the way you played the game."

Perfection, like in Diamonds, Comes at a Steep Price.

I was watching the Sociology Channel History Channel the other night, and after my guilty pleasure American Pickers ended, this new show called, God, Guns & Automobiles followed.  It, like most highly scripted reality television shows, has its moments; but it won't be on my watch list because the main character, Mark Muller, is way too intense; and the premise of a show about selling cars is uh, too inglorious to be interesting.

At one point Mr. Muller was sitting at the dinner table, blaring to his three adult kids that he expects "perfection" from everything they do.  He tells them that "anyone who doesn't win first place is a loser." Yeah, well good luck with the rebellion that type attitude is going to instill in your kids.

If you're close to perfect you just
might be sainted.  

Anyway, perfection is a nice dream. Jesus was good at it. Gandhi, Buddha, Thomas Aquinas, MLK, and Mr. Rodgers all did pretty good. The rest of history's characters? Not so much. We humans are flawed. We like partially broken characters. We like damaged goods. As they say on American Pickers, we like our "stuff with a little patina on it."

This Mark guy's expectations of perfection reminded me of ring shopping.

Yeah, keep following, I'll explain.

My wife and I just celebrated our ten year anniversary, but it seems like only yesterday I was shopping for a ring.  I probably spent seventy five hours looking for the perfect ring.

I don't know a ton about women now, and knew even less then, but I did know that the wedding and the ring were pretty important--even when women say things like, "It doesn't have to be expensive, I just want it to be from the heart."

Women say things like that, and when we (men) don't meet their expectations, they compartmentalize our failures it into a part of their frontal lobe called, "future argument starters / antagonisms."

Anyway, I learned right away that I don't like diamonds.  This was right before the whole blood diamond debacle, yet it wasn't the dirty way diamonds are obtained that made me sour on that stone.  It was that there are so many levels of "perfection" when it comes to diamonds.

Most people know about the four C's of diamonds: color, clarity, cut, carat, (some have added conflict-free or certification as a fifth element) but most people just trust the salesman will steer them in the right direction when it comes to actually purchasing the ring.  If you know me at all from my blog, you know I'm cheap, and I don't like salespeople, (beings that I was one) because most are more concerned with their own commission than actually helping the customer find the right item. Plus with engagement rings, there's the whole DeBeers myth/adage of spending "two months salary" on the ring.  Yeah, not going to happen.

So I researched the heck out of diamonds. I found websites where dealers (and pretending laypersons) can buy wholesale stones; I found people selling diamonds taken from dead people's jewelry; I found dealers telling me that their stones had patented "sparkle patterns;" but the most annoying aspect of buying diamonds is that every jeweler is trying to sell "perfection."

Recently sold at auction for 23 million dollars.
I guess my bid for 24 million was invalidated?  

Most people know that a flawless diamond is clear.  Clear as in, the color is completely transparent. D color is the clearest color available, (whereas anything from n-z is yellowish in color) and almost no diamond is actually "flawless" in clarity.  Most diamonds aren't VVS1 or even VS1 (very, very slightly included or very slightly included).  99.8% of diamonds are flawed.  Chocolate diamonds (or LeVian) diamonds are really just heavily included (carbon or other minerals) that cloud the opacity of the stone. Before they were called chocolate, they were called industrial...and they were worth a whole lot less.  

Yet even with the near impossibility of the physical changes necessary to produce a perfect diamond, nearly every diamond retailer was trying to sell me "flawless" diamond rings.  Salespeople told that I needed D color, VVS1 clarity, on top of a huge carat stone for her to really like it...it was all so...greedy and materialistic.  Most of these quality rings were over $5000 dollars in the half carat range!

I eventually found a stone that wasn't perfect. You'd have to take an eye lube to see its flaws, and it isn't  as translucent as a bottle of Fiji water, but you'd have to be gemologist to see its actual issues. I got such a good deal on the stone, that the lady who sold it to me later got fired (in my defense, I repeatedly asked her if she was sure she was giving me the right deal). I took that slightly flawed diamond and had it set next to two sapphire trillions in a custom platinum ring that I designed and had made by a  Portland company called Tradeshop.com. It appraised for over ten times what I paid for it.

From Tradeshop.com's website.  Mine (or rather, my wife's) is the one on the right.
I added the sapphires to give it some pizzaz.  

Anyway, the point I'm making with this whole article is that nobody likes perfection. Perfection is hard to achieve, and often at an awful price.  Look at Lance Armstrong, Mel Gibson, Tiger Woods, Justin Bieber...it's tough to be at the top of your game. Maybe it's better to have a few unsightly issues than to be so rigid that you fissure due to perfection pressure.

We all have inclusions and colorful events that dirty us up a little. Maybe instead of looking at each other with eye lubes, trying desperately to find faults in each other, we could see the other ways we've adorned our lives. Its funny how I love variance, variety, and chaos in nature, yet expect humans to be some robotic form of perfection.  Thank you, God, Guns and Automobiles and diamonds, for making me see the ugliness of perfection, and finding the beauty of imperfection.

When Can a Writer Graduate Beyond the Thesis Statement?

"When you know what you're getting before you start
reading, you get what you read while you are seeing,"
Dr. Seuss was never heard saying.  

I have a confession to make: I hate thesis statements.  I recognize the irony of that statement, beings that  I just butchered a thesis statement, so I will rephrase my premise: A good writer doesn't need to tell you what he or she is going to write about; a good writer has only one obligation: make a valid point.

I also acknowledge that stating a disdain for thesis statements is dangerous because I am also a language arts teacher.  We're supposed to love English language absolutes like: never end a sentence in a prepositional phrase, never use colloquialisms in formal writing, avoid cliches like the plague, and every paragraph should have five sentences; I hate all those as well.  Maybe that's why I never get a "permanent" teaching position.

Anyway, the thing about thesis statements that is so elementary is the pure idiocy it requires of the reader--telling them beforehand what you are going to do.  Like foreshadowing without the creativity.  Like a magician wanting you to figure out his trick; "watch as I take the card you choose and slip it into my sleeve...I will try and distract you with some slight of hand movement away from the card going up my sleeve...but pay no attention..." A magician would never give his or her secrets away, so why do we writers have to announce what we are going to argue in the first paragraph.

Preach it Fredrick!  

Go back and read some of the great speeches. Luther's "I Have a Dream" speech has no true thesis statement, merely four or five rhetorical devices and perfect inflection. It takes him nearly ten minutes to even say, "I have a dream." Fredrick Douglas, the free-slave abolitionist, was once asked to give a Forth of July speech in NY in 1852 (before the Civil War).  Many thought, perhaps, that Douglas would graciously talk about life as a newly free man.  But Douglas placates, then slowly sautes the listening audience for over twenty minutes before getting to his real point; dropping his mostly white audience into boiling oil:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.          

Do audiences and readers of today not have the kind of attention spans and comprehension skills to read beyond the first paragraph to decide whether the writer is saying anything of merit?  Do we NEED a thesis statement (and is it needed in the first paragraph) as so many of our school teachers taught us?

My answer? No. Actually, I take that back. A good writer has no obligation to tell you what he is doing. A good writer has a bag of tricks.  Hyperbole, a nasty Hook, Humor...those are just a few that I use that start with the letter H.  Eventually, you will know what my point is, but I will get there my own special way...stop expecting it the way you always received it.  (please recognize that I only lumped myself into the "good" writer category...not great, or legendary).

I love the Grangerford/Shepherdson fued:  Mimicking
the absurdity of the Hatfield/McCoy brouhaha.  

My theory of writing is this: Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in a style that does not go directly from point A to point B.  It meandered all over the place, just like the Mississippi River. Sometimes, while reading the novel with students, they ask, "Why does he keep veering off track and adding these side stories," and my answer is, "because he is a master story teller, and he knows that if the story was just Huck and Jim on a river for two hundred pages, we as an audience, would be bored to tears." Plus he makes mini-points throughout the whole novel. While his major thesis is: Slavery is inhuman, he has twenty or more mini-theses throughout the novel that connect to different members of his reading audience. Even a racist, while ignoring the major theme, can still learn a thing or two reading his novel.  That's the beauty of a good writer: making points his/her own way.

That's all a good writer has to do. Connect with his/her audience with valid points. That's my contract with you the reader. I won't use this blog to talk about dinner recipes, or my hatred of gardening, or my annoying dog unless I can connect them to something of significance in your life. Yes, I write about my life, but hopefully in a way that connects to other people's lives. But if you need a thesis statement about my next topic?  Might want to find yourself an About.com article instead.  Those articles are always so helpful and soulless.

Perseverance vs. Pity Parties: How Students Schooled This Teacher

Some days I sit in my classroom and get angry and feel sorry for myself. It's a stupid game I play  called, What does it take to get a little recognition around here? For seven years my district has teased me like that girl who used to flirtatiously poke you in the ribs during algebra class. The girl who you thought you had a chance with, but found out through her best friend that she was dating someone else the entire time. She just likes to mess with people's minds.

AAA wouldn't be so bad if I could break Joaquin's
minor league home run records.  "Swing Away!"

Four temporary contracts and two long term sub jobs in seven years would seem to get someone a little positive karma; but then again, maybe I'm just that guy with AAA talent. Good enough to temporarily fill in some holes as a utility player, but not good enough for the everyday up in the Big Show (-- a baseball analogy to my sports illiterate friends). Nobody will tell me if I have major league talent or not. No scout, manager, GM, or owner has ever sat in my classroom. Not ever.

And so I brood. I'm fed up. I'm tired. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm too old to be teased.

But this isn't a feel sorry for me article. God doesn't allow me much self-pity. Because no matter how bad my day is going, my magnetic personality seems to attract some anemic soul, desperate for guidance. These kids just seem to be drawn to me, I don't know why. Kids with little to no social skills.  Kids who try to tease me back by saying things like, "you're probably not a good athlete anymore because you got fat." I don't need that brutal honesty in my life; but I recognize that these kids were never taught social norms. Many of my students were never taught much of anything.

Everything one needs to know about
mankind is taught in LOTF.  

So outside of thesis statements, Antigone, Lord of the Flies, persuasive techniques, grammatical rules, a brief history of Iran, how poetry speaks to our lives, the most entertaining 50 minute lecture on everything you need to know about WWII (a pre-teach to Slaughterhouse Five),  I find I'm giving students ethics, sociology, personal responsibility sessions, psychological foundations, relationship advice, personal finance decisions, and general future guidance through my personal anecdotes.  (And teaching them not to write run-on sentences like I just did).  

I'm not saying this makes me different than other teachers--we all deal with way more than just curriculum and grading.

Like most other teachers I often feel overwhelmed with emotions. In one of my classes of 28 sophomores, five different kids are dealing with a parent divorce (ALL THIS MONTH).  Two others are going through horrible custody battles.  One boy is trying to get emancipated because his mother is a lunatic (my professional diagnosis).  I have kids trying to kick drug habits before they are 17 years old. I have a super sweet pregnant girl who got kicked out her parents home, and is realizing that her "man" is nothing but jerk. They all confide in me, as if I have magical answers and healing powers.

Different city, same general quality of parenting. 

The world has not acted kindly to the little segment of inhabitants that I have the fortune of teaching.  To be blunt, life has f***d these kids over. It's not fair. And many are making genetically bad mistakes, because their own parents didn't know how to express love or administer right discipline.

Suddenly my little recognition around here game doesn't mean so much anymore. The $10K difference between being a full time teacher and being a sub will not make or break my home. It will cut into my "comforts," but it is nowhere near the harsh realities that my students face everyday.

Even at the end of my worst day, I know that God loves me.  I know that my family loves me.  I know that I am not defined by the events of the day. I know who I am.

I wish they knew the assurances I know. I wish they had been loved like I was growing up. I wish they knew the love of a spiritual Father. I wish I could tell them. I wish I could right the wrongs of a lifetime of failures.

But all I can do is teach about life--what I've learned, and hope they make better decisions in the future. On the other hand, they've taught me so much about perseverance and that indefatigable will to push on despite the unfair treatment of a cold, uncaring, world. It doesn't seem right to have a pity party, when I'm living the good life in comparison.

Ohh, I love me some cheesy motivational posters.  

9 Months Gestating My Blog Baby: Nourishing a Platform

Two crazies does not make a sane.  

I just passed 50,000 views, which if you asked me before I read up on this stuff, would've seemed really impressive. For nine months--like a pregnancy--I've been pumping my blog full of vital nutrients: stories, opinions, features, nonsense, idiocy, useless tips, and tiny pieces of my soul. Thank God I can't carry a real baby, it'd probably be a little like Dennis Rodman. And we don't need any more Worm-like personalities in this US, spouting their moronic world views to nuclear armed countries.

Diplomacy skills aside, I've learned mucho in 9 months. I started this website because all these fancy personalities said that having a strong platform is the ONLY way to get published nowadays; and since I spent a year writing a book, getting published seemed like an important goal. Oh, sure, there are still the random stories of somebody getting paid six figures without having a manuscript written, but for the most part, the publishing industry is only interested in people already with a huge following: sure-fire bets.

Many do not know the end times prophecy:
"for man will grow dumb in the last days, he
will seek entertainment in the form of "fail
videos."  I will smite them with books. Big
Russian books."  

I wanted to be one of those bets. So I started building. And you started coming. And something grass roots began developing. I thought, like Jay Gatsby, if I can just "run faster, stretch out {my} arms farther...one fine morning---" I would finally make it. One of these blogs has to go viral eventually, right? I mean, everything goes viral. Videos on Youtube that literally make your brain want to divorce your visual cortex get millions of views. Surely, If I write something relevant and funny, and thought provoking, I'll get noticed by a big wig, and within a week, I'll be smoking cigars on Airforce One, talking about Kim Jong Il and letting it rain pages of my book.

I didn't really think that. I don't have that much of an ego. And I don't like ripping up books (especially ones that might be mine).

But I did think, man, if 50,000 people found my website in my first year and read my stuff, and liked, and linked, and commented and became followers, then surely that would impress a publisher enough to take a chance on me.

Who knows, it may happen yet. I'm not holding my breath. It looks like the industry is forcing people to take chances on their own via self-publishing or e-publishing. Which is fine. Make the artist market his goods. No risk, no reward; it's capitalism, baby.

Going out on the streets selling my books would give me ample material to keep writing books.  

But something else happened along the way.  I learned I actually like doing this.  My first blog was titled Blogging Is Dead.  I really thought the concept of blogging had faded away like LA Gear shoes.  Then I met some writers on their blogs, and commented, and they started commenting, and before I knew it, I cared more about reading their blogs than I did reading the Huffington Post, Fox News, or ESPN.

The news, lately, has became even more impersonal, while my blog friend's lives and stories became relevant. I shouldn't be surprised, I'm always looking for ways to make curriculum relevant to students, so I should've seen this coming. I guess I'm attracted to anecdotal stories.

Long story short--I started this blog with selfish intentions. I cared about my daily numbers and gaining followers, and getting likes and becoming viable on Google, and trying to impress a publisher.

Blog Party--BYOH: Bring Your Own Hotspot. 

Then I realized that starting a dialogue with other intelligent humans on any number of subjects; writing whatever the heck I fancy that week; and having a spot to test my ideas on an unwitting audience---well all that is priceless.

I also made some friends along the way.  So happy gestation period everyone. Thank you for supporting and reading and putting your two cents into my little world. Together, we've made a very unfortunate baby, but I love it anyway.

First Pregnancy Nightmares Turned into Miracles: My Little Preemie

I'm not a daddy blogger.  I don't write about the adorable things my daughters do on an everyday basis, or my disciplinary successes, or about the three times I woke up last night pacifying bad dreams. While these events are big in my own life, I feel like the majority of people see enough of these overshared parenting tidbits on their Facebook status updates on a daily basis. I hope my children are good little people, but it doesn't mean much if they end up rotten apples in the long run (so I'm holding off on giving advice).

But one story in the news recently made me re-remember a difficult time in the life of my wife and I. The story in the news is of a little girl who was born with her heart outside her body, an 8/1,000,000 rarity, with 90% of those babies dying. I can't image what that would be like. In this current story the baby is doing well, post-multiple surgeries, and just got to go home (albeit with a protective chest case). It's a really nice story. But the medical expert said something that brought back the nightmares for me.

I'm paraphrasing him when I say, "the family had three options when they discovered the abnormality at 16 weeks; terminate the pregnancy, birth the baby and give it "comfort care" until it passes, or agree to extensive and expensive surgeries that still might not save the baby."

The "terminate the pregnancy part" is what stuck with me. My wife, Jill, and I heard those words 11 times in the hour & a half meeting with some "genetic counselors" that our doctor recommended; this after my wife's quad screen test came back all funky. The results of this test can have many false positives, and since our test numbers were so strange, we were treated as if every possible conclusion was not only a viable, but probable outcome for our child. We suddenly were getting ultrasounds every week, and feeling the concern on every doctor, or aid, or specialist's face we saw. Later, as other symptoms arose, the word preeclampsia was thrown around, and suddenly our first child, Jill's first pregnancy, became a little less than fairy tale-ish, it got real, and scary.

Jill's blood pressure continued to go up, as well as her swelling. Our doctor was smart enough to know that bed rest at home was not a possibility with my more than active wife. So Jill was hospitalized as a precaution. We thought it would be over night.  Between the sometimes helpful, blunt, rude, and overly nice nursing staff, and a few indifferent doctors, we realized that unless there was some miraculous changes in Jill's body chemistry, our baby was going to come early. Very early.

Our actual doctor finally arrived and said the goal was to get to 32 weeks. Babies who can get to this stage will still be small with many challenges to overcome, but do much better than babies born before 30 weeks.  This was not the first time we were told that this pregnancy was not all peaches and cream.

Three weeks earlier, at the infamous "genetic" counseling session we were told of risks of spina bifida, Down's Syndrome, and other lesser known physical and mental disorders...we were told over and over that termination would be "easier" before 29 weeks (or third trimester). An amniocentesis test was also recommended for further knowledge.

Shaken, having our world thrown in an absolute dizzying spiral, my wife sobbing profusely, I found the courage to ask, "what is the danger of this test?" (in the test they insert a needle into the uterus and pull out a small amount of amniotic fluid).

He answered that it induces labor in about 2/300 cases, and rarely causes death to the fetus. Statistically, it was "safe."

We were emotionally exhausted.  90 minutes of shocking information, being told that our baby would probably not make it to term, and that it most likely would have some form of abnormality, and that our lives would be "hell" if we decided to have a baby with a genetic deficiency, I finally threw my hands up in defeat.  

We had emphatically rejected every mention of "aborting."  I said we were having this baby regardless of its implications. Unless there was certain death for my wife, we were not going to terminate the pregnancy.

"Doctor ______, when we came into this session, we were under the impression that there was a 98% chance that everything was fine with our baby. Now it seems like our child could have any number of problems? What are we looking at?"

"Oh, we are talking about a very small percentage. Your odds are actually better than what you thought, more like 99.8% that everything will be fine with your child."

"WHAT!"  We've sat here for 90 minutes listening to you guys preach ABORTION, and there's most likely nothing wrong with our child!? You want us to take a test with a higher statistical chance of damaging our child, just to find out a few weeks before birth if our kid is abnormal?  Are you kidding me? We are HAVING this baby!"

"Well, we're only here to tell you possibilities, and give you options."

"11 times! 11 times is not options, it's coercion!"

"Can we leave, Chris?" Jill whispered between her sobs. The doctors wanted us to stay longer, probably to calm us down or to work through our "confusion" on the matter. I stepped in and, with my arms around my sobbing wife, told her and the doctors, "We are leaving, now."

I wanted to run out of the office, but my wife was in the waddling stage of pregnancy. Still we made it out of there, hastily, without signing any forms or making any other appointments. We had never been so upset or frustrated in our lives. I had never been that close to punching another adult in my life.

"I don't ever want to see that man again," my wife blurted halfway out of the office.

Later, after Jill's forced hospitalization, whenever Dr. ______ was on-call for the mother/baby floor, our nurses refused to let him treat us during our stay there. Like anyone who cares for you kind in a time of need, some of those nurses became like family. By the end of our stay we knew their family histories as well as they knew Jill's medical history. 

We spent the next 11 days in stunned hospital boredom. I slept on two couches pushed together, and we watched tons of television, and entertained visitors, and thought we would get released at any moment. Her blood pressure remained high, and her swelling was pretty outrageous, but she didn't act sick.

Lily reaches out and touches someone (mom), immediately
after birth.  

I actually can't believe she made it a week. She's not good with relaxing in the first place, and forced bed-rest was almost a guarantee of failure.  Eventually her liver and kidney nearly stopped functioning, as the preeclampsia got so bad our doctor ordered, "the baby is coming out today, ASAP."

Long story short. We weren't ready. 30 weeks of gestation isn't long enough.  But it didn't matter. Within two hours, we were the lucky parents to a tiny purple baby. 2.6 pounds. We named her Lily. "She's the size of three apples," as a young cousin named Davis aptly noticed. She was. A tiny little miracle baby.

Jill, still swollen, and drugged on Magnesium Sulfate,
finally gets to see her daughter two days later.  

A week later I finally got to take my wife home. Lily would have to stay in an incubating isolette in the NICU for another four weeks. It's difficult to bond with a newborn baby through a hand portal.  But she was beautiful, and determined to thrive. When her even smaller than normal infant fingers curled around my finger I knew I was in trouble--this girl would be spoiled.

We were allowed to do Kangaroo care for ten minutes at a time. In the neonatal unit, germs are enemy number one. We had to wash in with iodine and other anti-germ agents every visit.  Only close family was allowed to see the our little embryo-like girl. Our family, like her actual parents and nurses, were encouraged to participate in Kangaroo care, which is basically sitting with the baby pushed up against your bare chest.

While isolation, heat, forced food through a tube, and other medical procedures are constantly needed, human touch, bonding with the smells and feel of skin, have been found necessary for the psychological well-being of a newborn, especially preemies.

I worried that this bonding would be lost. Babies need mommy, need to hear daddy. I feared she would be socially disconnected. Not able to feel love. I read a lot about preemie development, and some of it worried me.

Nadia (left) and Lily.  Just another day of dress up fun.  

Flash forward seven years, and Lily is a little princess. She has unlimited energy. Some of the developmental issues are there.  She's still not on the growth charts. She struggles academically. She's a little behind in math and reading, but she puts in extra time during homework, and is nearly at grade level. But she doesn't have any "serious problems."

It's almost a pastime for parents to brag about their kids' amazing performances in music or on state tests or on the soccer field, insisting that their kid is talented and gifted far above normalcy.  Almost like they want to put down any parent whose kid is merely average at all those things. I can't brag about Lily's talents or intellectual prowess yet,  but she does have one amazing quality. Empathy.

We were watching The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and Lily picked up on every detail happening in the lives of these on-screen people.  When the story came to its bittersweet conclusion, Lily was sobbing uncontrollably. She hugged grandma, and then ran to me, and I held her while her heart broke. She does this all the time. She is not emotional, but will cry for the injustices and trauma happening in other people's lives.

This "disconnect" I was worried with, is not there at all. She is a social butterfly. She loves unconditionally. And she's hilarious. Making jokes that crack up adults all the time.

In conclusion, my daughter barely made it to this world. We were told she would have all kinds of serious problems which she doesn't have. We were advised to abort her, which we emphatically rejected. We were told our lives would be difficult, and mostly they were wrong. And while many parents get to brag about some amazing abilities and talents their child possesses, I get to brag that I have a daughter of great character, and I can't wait to see the adult she grows up to be.

Lily's 1st birthday, post-swimming pool.  I'm convinced she is a water dog
because she didn't get enough time in the womb.  

Lily (left) with her newborn sister Nadia.  

Translated by Dad:  "Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was {for}: all people to be equal"
"My Dream is: that bad people would change so they can love God."
"Here is something I can do to make my dream come true: Pray to God so that if
anybody bad comes to me they wont hurt me." 

Losing is a Disease, Losing is a Disease.

Participation ribbons, I know
thee well.  

I’m really good at losing.  I played eight years of baseball and basketball, two years of football, four years of high school golf, and collectively, I have one third place trophy to show for it all.  I’d like to believe that I was just unlucky to play on some really bad teams, but I’m also willing to believe that the most common denominator to my lack of winning, is me. 

My losing streak has helped me understand a lot about myself.  One: I’m a sore loser.  I’m still bitter at all the teams that didn’t play me enough, or the coach who made the wrong call at the wrong time, costing us a chance at plastic figurine greatness.  Two: It builds character, like poutiness, temper-tantrumitus, jealousy, self-loathing, etc.  Three: it has made me primed for success.    

“Primed for success?” you ask, “haven’t we (the world) beaten you down enough, why won’t you settle for the basic comforts of mediocrity?”    Well, I guess sports also taught me about competition, and even though the other team might be grossly equipped by Nike, contain a roster full of blue-chippers,  and cheating in every capacity of the word, a win by the underdog is still possible, albeit unlikely.    

R.A. Dickey: despite the name and ten years of woeful MLB
performance, found his niche by perfecting the knuckleball. 

With the Summer Olympics starting on Friday, I won’t get many opportunities to root for the underdog.  Usually rooting for the dark horse would make me unpatriotic, as the Americans are favored to win it all, again.  But to call any Olympic athlete an underdog, is unfair to the word underdog.  There are over 7 billion people in this world.  There are over 10,500 athletes participating in this Olympiad, most of whom have no shot at the 302 gold medals.  But they have much more of a chance than I do.  Statistically speaking, I have better odds of getting murdered, 37 TIMES IN A ROW, than even making the Olympic games.  Getting murdered really sucks.  Getting murdered 37 times, is inconceivable.  Actually, my odds of making any event in the Olympics are actually worse than all of the above happening to me in the same lifetime: winning an Oscar, dating a supermodel (worse if she saw me, or if my wife found out about it), being on a plane with a drunken pilot,  scoring ten hole-in-ones on golf courses, being considered possessed by Satan, getting hemorrhoids, being audited by the IRS, having my identity stolen, and then being murdered, and having the murderer be exonerated of my murder.  (Course, now that I’m thinking about it, that doesn’t sound too far off from O.J. Simpson’s career…and he won a Heisman trophy as well). 

Many Hollywood insiders thought "The Juice" was just one more Naked
Gun movie away from his Oscar trophy.  

I’ve established that obviously my athletic abilities and winning drive will never get me a paid contract for any pro sport, including the WBL: The World Bocce League.  But I’d like to believe that even with 7,000,000,000 people in the world, my voice will still be heard.  I know it’s hard to hear over the screaming masses of starving people, soccer hooligans, Obama-haters, and middle school insulters, but I still have something to say. 

So I’m still writing, despite the rejections of literary agents who didn’t read my book proposal, despite the fact that print media is a fading art-form, despite the fact that my literary circle of influence is relatively small.  Because some people who lose a lot, still have the tenacity to see the finish line, and hold up a trophy and say to all those people who doubted them all along, “I forgive you, but no, you may not have a piece of my pie.”  

Okay, you can have one bite, but THAT'S IT!!!