I were wrong agan

The title of this missive will come as no great shock for those who’ve known me well or long and especially both well and long.

I just returned from a teaching trip which was a peak experience but quite draining and I was looking forward to some non-brain-challenging semi-face time with friends and family via social media. I was not disappointed for the most part, that is, until Mary led me to a video that required some reflection.

Daughter Two’s sorority sisters had scripted, recorded, edited and posted a video as a sort of sendoff tribute to her and it forced me to face up to one of the more glaring instances of me having chimed in as a Dad and then turning out to be, you know, full of caca.

You see, when Two went off to college, one of the decisions on which I took a fatherly stand was the whole idea of her joining a sorority. I didn’t have the university experience, as many of you know. So I can’t say I really knew much about what it’s like to live and learn and grow in that intellectual and cultural setting. But one of the things I thought I knew was that Greek life was pretty uniformly evil.

While I didn’t exactly take Animal House as a documentary, I have to admit that the stereotypes it parodied were pretty much consistent with my image of frats and sororities - spoiled rich kids with more focus on the social than the academic aspects of college life, Biffs and Buffies into partying, wearing sheets and drinking til dawn. Snottiness and debauchery in equal measure and a view of life completely devoid of any connection to the rest of us. Exclusiveness and meanness to anyone not deemed ‘worthy’ of the Greek mantel.

Turns out, I was right. That is, if you only consider such bastions of backwardness as Sigma Alpha Epsilon in your evaluation.

I was wrong – completely, massively, unfathomably wrong – when it comes to the ladies of Kappa Alpha Theta at MIT.

I fought Two on this, to the extent that a Dad of a daughter who is of age and going off to college has any standing to fight. And being Two, I believe she truly listened, considered, and then overrode my arguments. And in my opinion today, her decision to go her own way on this may be the primary reason why a stressful experience like undergraduate studies at MIT proved survivable for her.

It has become a cliché for writers and commencement speakers to refer to college students as the hope for our common futures. But in the case of the women of Kappa Alpha Theta, the cliché rings true. To the extent that Two’s Theta sisters actually do represent the leaders of tomorrow, Tomorrow is in the best of hands.

I’ve seldom been gladder to be proven wrong.

Other instances of this phenomenon have included:

-          My insistence that Disney was not the right place for One – yeah, blew that one

-          My reticence to get a sleep study done

-          My attempt to take Odin back to the pound after he’d done a certain amount of exuberant property damage in his first couple of weeks with us

-          My argument that we should reno the bathrooms before the downstairs

 I could go on. Suffice to say, any success I’ve had as a parent and husband has as often been related to my willingness to cave in as my ability to prevail. And regarding Two’s membership in Theta and her residence in their house, this was a wonderful example of me being concerned and thoughtful and insistent. And wrong as hell.

Yup! I were wrong.

Again.

My baby's feet

I went with Mary for her pre-surgery appointment with her foot surgeon this morning. It was so cool looking at her x-ray images where for once even an amateur like moi could readily see exactly what the doc was describing to us.

It was fascinating looking at the skeletal structure as it always is. Something about the workings of the human body is just riveting.

More than that, my true love has been in serious foot pain just about all the time for as long as I can recall. And this guy was able to show us why. And show us what he’s going to do about it. And predict that her post-surgical pain will be no more than 20% of her pre-surgical pain because most of the nasties causing the pain (but only most - can’t do much about the effects of arthritis) will be gone.

I always hate for any of my loved ones to undergo surgical risk. But in this case, I think we’re both honestly looking forward to it.

Plus, it’s a day off work, so I got that going for me.

Had another birthday

Yesterday.

Got a nice toy from Mary. And calls from our Daughters, One and also Two. And a promise of lunch at the Der (yes I KNOW they dropped the ‘Der’ from the name but I’m a purist, so please just let it go) and a miniature cake.

The dogs didn’t seem to take much note of the sixty-second anniversary of my natal day. They were, however, impressed to the usual level when I fed them and Zoey the Small and Annoying took delight in chasing her ball. Odin the Large and Lazy mostly just lived up to his name.

Mary and I made plans for today, involving such red letter events as getting new tires for the truck, searching Half Price Books for a copy of the tome I was halfway through when I left it on top of the payment machine in the airport parking garage. Didn’t find it but did find a new Amy Tan so all was not lost.

My buddy Sheila called to wish me a happy which was very cool because I’d forgotten so it truly was a nice surprise.

I had a wonderful chat with my bus buddy Marsha who teaches at the maritime school in Seattle. She’s a fascinating person who has sailed the seven seas as crew on board yachts of wealthy people. She and I are both teachers so we frequently talk shop and of course, there’s always the fact that she has lived the life that a zillion others wish they’d had the guts and fortitude to pursue to hold my interest. I wish One and Two could meet her.

I’m looking forward to being a whole family for a few days at Two’s graduation and to doing a road trip with Two to California and to kayaking, etc.

One is singing a lead part in a big showcase and I am so basking in the pride I know she must be feeling.

It’s been a really good birthday weekend so far.

Insurgency

You see, the thing about writing a novel is that if you really create living characters, characters with their own motivations and histories and baggage and aspirations as well as perspiration, they don’t tend to neatly follow the directions you’ve laid out for them. In fact, you can’t really know where the book is going to go until you have some understanding of the forces at play, not if you want the story to ring true. And while some of those forces are situational, the initial conditions and setting and precipitating incidents and all, many of them are relational and transactional, which means character-driven. Rising action really means rising emotions and emotions are messy.

This can quickly lead to anarchy. And anarchy is not a wonderful thing, given that your aim - the whole reason for embarking upon this flight of fancy in the first place - was to tell a simple little story that you thought would interest readers, make an insightful point regarding the human condition even and which you have therefore, you know, planned out.

But no-o-o-o, the crowd that inhabits the novel decides they want to have their own say in things. So Maggie, who was originally going to be a bit player in the piece and whose sole job was to provide a love interest for Marc so as to take that bit of tension off the relationship between Marc and Julia, decides she needs a life of her own and even (crap!) a third dimension and needs, for Gawd’s sake. And a daughter. Don’t get me started on the damned daughter!

And the townspeople refuse to fit into the neat Mayberry-esque framing I had planned for them and start lobbying for more page time, both individually and collectively and the next thing you know, there’s a couple dozen where I’d figured on maybe six and new neighbors showing up every writing day.

Then there’s Max. All Max had to do was die. His demise takes place in the prologue so that one might reasonably have thought that he would play his scene, thereby providing motivation for the other characters to come together (no, not like Big Chill except really precisely like Big Chill, but not really) and then to be content in his croakitudinous condition and Just. Stay. Dead.  You think he could handle that? One might think that being deceased, he could have just, you know, stayed quiet. One might think that and one would be wrong again! Which brings us to Georgia but I’m not going to sound off on Georgia because I really like her, even if she wasn’t one of the original characters and sort of wheedled her way in on the figurative coattails of the dead guy who refused to stay dead.

These people are making me crazy!

Which I must have been for ever thinking I could write this thing.

Which I can. I will. I am.

But I don’t have to like it.  

Except the dogs. The dogs be cool. (They have very little dialogue.)

Easter Sunday...

…is not so much like it was when Daughters One and also Two were young.

In their younger years, Mary would put together these quite amazing Easter baskets chock full of goodies and objets d’plaisir. (Okay, I made that Frenchified bit up but I like to fake being worldly so please just let me have it.)

We would fill the obligatory plastic eggs with candies and coins and hide both the eggs and the baskets in obscure places about the house. Come the morn, I would go down and feed the dogs and start coffee before beginning the torturous process of preparing the girls for the festivities of the day. Said preparation consisted primarily of suggesting a string of activities the girls might want to engage in before starting the hunt d’ goodies.

For example, I might suggest washing the truck or mowing the lawn or taking a lengthy hike, and ponly then beginning the festivities. Each of my suggestions would involve more of a delay and each in turn would be met with a louder chorus of boos, until finally I would ‘surrender’ to their wishes and the hunt would be on.

Of course, we took videos and still pics as the girls scurried about looking here and there to a raucous chorus of barking dog(s), depending on which year we’re considering.

This year is a bit more subdued. One is in Florida, so other than a call for well-wishing, sort of out of the picture (sigh!). Two flies back to Boston tonight but before she does, we have Mary’s sister and niece and her boyfriend here for a dinner of spiral-cut ham and cheesy potatoes. It looks to be a lovely evening.

It’s only natural that things change as time marches on. The girls, being adults now, are not to be entranced at the prospect of searching under cushions and behind doors for chocolate eggs. As I say, it’s only natural…

Still, I must confess to an insane urge to hide the ham.