Rock and roll...

...is loud. And that's part of why I like it. Life is loud right now. And that's part of why I like it, too. In the last seven days, some pretty incredible stuff has happened:

One of my best friends in the whole wide world has returned to California. After a series of some-good-but-mostly-suck-ish adventures in the midwest, Jon is back in town. He drove all the way from Missouri (which I envy) and got a flat tire one and a half hours away (which I do not envy). But he is here, he is staying with me until he gets work and a place of his own, and it is grand to catch up. We have already spent countless times reliving the past and laughing our butts off about the present. Good times.

My kids and I have spent some wonderful time together. We have gone to the Russian River to splash around, and take the dog swimming. We have played board games and watched movies and had popcorn and stayed up late. Thing One came to work with me on Tuesday, and I get to see him again tonight. He is getting so mature, and growing so much--he nearly fills out his bed now, and I can still (barely) remember carrying him like a football. Thing Two is growing, too, although his heart was broken Tuesday when his pet rat passed away. (She had a giant tumor and a couple other smaller ones growing in her, so it was for the best.) He is handling it like a trooper, trying to remember the good times, but it is hard. Other than that, he is also growing like crazy and becoming his own person.

Last weekend a show I am directing opened in Santa Rosa. "Wretch Like Me" is a one-man autobiographical show about growing up into and out of Fundamental Evangelical Christianity, something close to my heart and in my own past. It is a very potent story about religion, but even more so about maturing, finding one's own voice, and how the things that often drive us into difficult situations are also the very things that give us the tools to get back out.

This week, I ran auditions for my own creation, a show called "Affairs of Face" (If you are interested, check my theater company's page for more info.) The turnout was pretty small, but the cast is small, and I am going to put some feelers out. There is still hope. And, both of these projects ("Wretch" and "Affairs") will be part of the very first Sonoma County Arts Fringe Festival this autumn. So I am VERY excited about THAT.

In all of this, I have frequently lost sleep due to fretting about things, panicking about things, and drinking waaaaaaaay too much caffeine. I have not always been my cheery self. However, throughout these adventures, my girlfriend Denise has been stalwartly at my side--supporting me, comforting me, encouraging me, giving me strength and love every step of the way. She has helped out with the show, being "on book" and taking notes for us during the rehearsal process. She has taken care of me when I needed it. And even with the busy-ness of it all, we have spent some wonderful times together.

In reflecting about everything that is going on, I really cannot complain. I am doing what I love, with the people I love, and I cannot really ask for much more than that.

Except maybe win the lottery.

Clip of the Week...

This kid's mom cancelled his World of Warcraft account. His brother, prophet that he was, videotaped the post-cancellation tantrum.



I have no words.

Time to Character Up...

By Rudyard Kipling:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

By Anonymous:

IF - you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
IF - you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
IF - you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
IF - you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
IF - you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
IF - you can overlook it when people take things out on you,
IF - when, through no fault of your own, something goes wrong,
IF - you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
IF - you can face the world without lies and deceit,
IF - you can conquer tension without medical help,
IF - you can relax without liquor,
IF - you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

THEN, you are almost as good as your dog or your cat.

Good words.

The supported becomes the supporter...

My friends and family have always been great supporters of mine in theater. But I have been working so long, and wanting to spend time with my kids when I have them, it has been hard to get out and see other stuff. Thursday felt like a rush to catch up.

My younger son landed the part of Jupiter in the school play (great solo, lots of fun), and his performances were on Thursday at 2pm (for his classmates) and 6:30pm (for the parents and the rest of the world). My eldest son was playing in his band for his school's open house--also on Thursday, also at 6:30pm. So, I left work early to watch and tape the two o'clock show, then ran home to change, pack and throw back a cup of soup before heading off to the open house. After watching/taping the band, Thing 1 and I toured his classrooms and hung out a bit before I left to see a friend in the Santa Rosa Junior College Jazz Ensemble.

God help me, I was a bit predisposed on this last. I shouldn't judge, but I had this preconceived notion that the group would be...well, academic. As in 'not very good.' But my friend has a huge love of music, and had a drum solo that he was very excited about in the last song of the first half of the show, so I thought I would go. Man, was I ever surprised. I got there after it started (they started at 7:30pm, so it was underway by the time I got there) and snuck in to find a seat in the dark theater. They were TIGHT. This ensemble was very, very good, and it made me wish that I could hear more than just the last two pieces in their set. But I did at least get to hear my friend play in a song called "Freefall", and he was absolutely amazing.

Last night, I went to see Denise in "A View From the Bridge", the current show at Ross Valley Players. If you don't know Arthur Miller's work, it is intense stuff. Most of his 'American Classics' are dark, struggle-against-the-tide type of shows. (Denise refers to this one in particular as a modern Greek tragedy.) To extract hope from a show like this takes work--you don't just get a smile and a toe tap, you have to understand the character's struggles, how human they are, and see it for what it is. Denise was outstanding, as was the actor playing Eddie Carbone, and a few of the supporting cast. The others seemed to be finding their feet still, and I look forward to going again later in the run to see how the child has developed. But I would still recommend the show heartily. Ticket information is here.

Since I was going to the show, I offered to drive Denise down to Ross early. I was looking forward to a bit of quiet time to myself and a burrito from a little Taqueria down there that I used to frequent. And, it was a chance for me to run an errand to visit my friends at The Mountain Play, where I did "The Wizard of Oz" last year (there are some links on my post here, if you missed out or want to have a flashback). It was great to see a couple of folks, but MAN are those people swamped right now. Their next show, "The Man of La Mancha", opens next weekend, and the sheer volume of logistics involved in putting a play up on the mountain is overwhelming. It was nice to catch up, lend some support, give some feedback, and pick up an archival copy of Oz. (Still hard to believe that was me under all that silver makeup.)

Anyway, all this supporting of the arts made me think: if someone who is a fan of sports can be called an athletic supporter, would a supporter of the arts be called a dance belt?

In partial defense of the madness that is my life...

Okay, I will start by saying the following:

(a) I am a poor correspondent. I am, in fact, so poor at keeping in touch with others, that I expect to be posthumously decorated by some Agency for Not Staying in Touch with Others when I am interred in this earth.

(b) I am busy. Over busy. Some of this over-busy-ness I select and put upon myself, and therefore my excuse of being over-busy is partially my own fault. (I say partially because every activity I undertake includes the possibility for change, error, and misstep, and therefore also includes the possibility for delay and stress.)

(c) My life is loud. Hence the title.

However, I also find that I get--not flak, per se, but lack of understanding from some of my single friends when I tell them I am buried and cannot hang out. I try to convince them that it isn't because I don't want to spend time with them, that I am just crazed with work and shows, and half my life is spent with my kids. It is the last part that gets barely-restrained eye rolling.

There is a writer named Carolyn Hax who pens an advice column for the Washington Post. Here's one that has been floating around the aether for a while now, but that just recently caught my eye--she has said it better than I could, so I'm just going to wantonly plagiarize.

Dear Carolyn:

Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

Tacoma, Wash.

Here is her response:

Dear Tacoma: Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

You can read the full article
here, but I pretty much reprinted all of it above.

Give your friends-who-are-parents a little patience and understanding. They probably would LOVE to spend time with you. They just need time. Like, maybe a decade or so.

Making the Edges Ragged, (Pt. 2 of 3)…

I often get sick after the close of a show--something about the adrenaline finally slowing down enough, or the emotional drain of closing a show and saying goodbye to all those characters, or maybe just the sheer exhaustion of finalizing a run. But this time, I didn't have time to get sick. Christmas was coming! I did my shopping in and around the show time, and was able to knock out my last minute stuff successfully, and got everything ready for a wonderful Christmas. The boys were with me on Christmas Eve, and my girlfriend Denise and Thing 1 and I went up to my parents' house to help my father fold wonton. (It is a tradition in my family to have wonton soup on Christmas Eve--that old division of labor thing. Mom makes Christmas food, Dad makes it on the Eve.)

On Christmas morning we opened lots of presents, then the boys went to their mom's for the afternoon and opened even more. My parents came over in the morning for the giftwrap genocide, and Denise and I played mahjong with them all afternoon while the boys were away. The boys rejoined us in the evening, and we had a splendid Christmas dinner. Overall, the day was a wonderful success (I thought, anyhoo). There was one more gift I had for them, though.

When Thing 1 and Thing 2 were 6 and 3 years old, respectively, I took them to Disneyland for the first time. I didn’t want to go much earlier—no sense taking a kid to something like that they aren’t even going to remember when they’re that young (in Thing 2’s case). But I didn’t want to wait any longer, either—Thing 1 was at just the right age. We had such an incredible, magical time, that I mentioned (and planned, in my heart of hearts) to go every two years until the kids no longer wanted to hang out with us. We went again two years later, and were slated to go again in 2007, but divorce reared its ugly head, and I had emptied my retirement account just to fix my ex’s van, change careers, and move twice. I wanted more than anything to make it happen this year. I personally had never been during the holidays, and had heard it was a special time there (even more special than usual). I asked my mom if she would like to pitch in on passes in lieu of getting them a big-ticket item for their present, and she agreed. My girlfriend volunteered to cover one night of hotel expenses. The success of SantaLand sealed the deal.

Every year, Starbucks Coffee Company releases a wonderful giftcard holder a part of their holiday promotion. I had picked up two of them. On the day after Christmas, I handed my two sons a beautiful red felt card holder with a 2-day parkhopper pass to Disneyland inside. We left on the following day...

to be continued...

How fast they grow...

Yesterday was the orientation for my eldest son's entry into middle school. He is very nervous, very excited, and looking forward to it so much.

I, however, am still trying to come to grips with it.

I still remember sitting on the floor of our apartment in Brooklyn with him in my lap as a newborn, watching NHL games on our 13" television. It doesn't seem that long ago that he sat in my lap at Train Town and clapped in that funny way little kids clap, elbows flailing away and grinning to split their head open. And there is a mason jar with stuff from the beach--we went on his last day before he went to school as a kindergartner, and saved some things from our trip in a small jar to remember the day.

Now he is in junior high school. In just a year or two, he will know everything, and I will know nothing. I will stop being cool for a couple years, and his friends will be cooler. He will want to spend his time with someone else, doing something I cannot for the life of me find interest in.

But he will be smarter, more clever, more idealistic than ever. He will see wrong in the world and want to fix it. He will see things in people he has never seen before, for good or ill, and it will help make him into the man he will be for the rest of his life. Hopefully the things I have tried to share with him, teach him, show him in the last 11 years will stick and he will make smart choices through it all.

Plus there are girls.

Hooboy. Better go sit down in my rocker and take a nap.

Screw this! I'm going home...

Alright, I am not doing any more time travel. I looked at my blog page two nights ago, and realized the last entries are nothing more than signposts directing you, my dear faithful readers, to old news. I got to thinking that, if I keep posting backlog blogs ("backblogs"?) at this rate, I might get caught up in a couple weeks, but by then you will have fourteen entries of me linking up five of the past. What sense does that make? Nada mucho, Taquito. Besides, I am buried enough in life as it is. I am so overwhelmed, the last time I tried to post I sat and stared at the computer for a good five minutes, and nothing came out my fingers. Sad.

Some parents use "time outs" as a punishment for kids. For those of you who may not know what a "time out" is, it basically consists of sitting a kid down and forcing him to do nothing--or at least stop doing whatever it was the child was doing that the parent wanted stopped. In the old days, we were "sent to our rooms"--I think the time out is a modern version of sending children to their rooms, since modern families never seem to be home. Which might be why the kids are acting out. But I digress.

Anyhoo, lotsa--a colloquialism that equals unit of measure roughly two "bunches" in size--parents give time outs as punishment. ('Stop it, Bobby! You're in time out!') What they are really for, though, is to give the child a moment to sort out what s/he is doing, why it might be wrong, and cool down and get some perspective on life. Then they are able to (in theory) conduct themselves in a manner appropriate for the situation. The research I read recommended one minute in time out (when enforced) for each year of the child's life.

Which means I will be back in...about forty minutes.

A little weird...

Preface/rant: I have always had this huge pet peeve about "graduation" ceremonies for K-7th grade. It seems like such a way to "level" the playing ground--in the wrong way. By making every year "special", they have managed to make no year special. There is no sense of accomplishment in moving from grade 5 to 6 if that "accomplishment" has been ballyhooed every year since preschool. It would be like having your birthday every month--you would just get tired of it. Except that moving from one grade to another is actually an accomplishment. Having a birthday is managing to survive for another year. (Which, I guess I would have to concede *is* an accomplishment for some of us.)

I have a similar (same?) beef about every single kid in a league getting a "participant" trophy. What is the point? I mean, I understand we are trying to encourage participation, but aren't we devaluing the hard work and victory of accomplishing something (i.e., the championship)? What sort of society are we setting ourselves up for? I can tell you my prediction, because it's already showing: a society of people who can accomplish much, but don't see the point. Sad. And very, very scary. [end preface/rant]

Anyhoo, today was Thing 1's last day in grammar school. EEEEEK! It was a "promotion" ceremony, which I guess was a small victory. It was also weird because I can't believe he is that old. I was uneasy, but at the same time very, very proud: among other things, he received the presidential award for academic achievment (there were only ten kids in the school who did well enough to get it). He was nervous and very excited, and I was really happy to see him up there. Next year he starts middle school.

EEEEEK again.