Sunday, March 28, 2010

The problem with going home is that my family is there





This is a picture of my father taking advice from me. I need LazyLo's sarcasm font right now.

Tomorrow, my 10 year old son and I fly to Pittsburgh to spend time with my parents and my almost 40 year old brother who lives with them and will never. ever. ever. move out. The baby of the family gets treated like a prized gem of rare provenance and the eldest (moi) is treated like a commodity in a declining industry.

I am bringing my son so that he can spend time with his grandparents. He did not visit in 2009, attending a chess camp in lieu of attending the every other year (biannual? semiannual? quasiregular? SAT exam question?) of my family reunion. He is family, goddamnit, and besides his other grandparents are dead. Not to put too fine a point on it.

The problem and what I am already anticipating, which is not making the actuality any easier, is my parents' reception. They are in their ways and I can't expect to change them. But I am disappointed in what I perceive (not qualifier, almost diplomatic approach) to be their nominal, de minimus (frustrated lawyer. And father is a lawyer now a judge so I figure there is some pertinence. Though dictum might be more apt.) effort to address the fact that there is a grandson in the house. We - my son and I - must move in the current of the household; there is no adjustment.

My father will attend to his interests and his work and will not budge from his routine. My mother will have her appointments and her routines and will not sway. My brother lives a shadow existence of my parents and thus will haunt and reverberate - another reminder of what seems to be the inexorable way to live in my parents house. The only communal time will be cocktail hour, followed by dinner. But the conversation topics will be within a certain scope and the discussions will follow plotted arcs. The end of the meal will be followed by ritualistic cleaning of the kitchen, the surgical stacking of the dishwasher, running of the dishwasher and my parents turning in for the night. My brother will likely want to talk further on the first night of our visit, but the following nights will hasten to his room under the guise of a schedule that cannot permit change.

The metaproblem with all of this is my soreness at my parents' inability to recognize who I am. And my sadness that my attempt to have my son spend time with them may not result in them knowing him. But he may know them. I just don't want him to take it personally. Them being family. Therein lies the rub.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The blog is not my vanity plate. It is my vanity buffet table.

Days ago, when I added this headline - which was pretty much the sum and total of the post - I added this text: "Good title! More to come!"

And so as I sit down to write this, not only do I ape a Fireside Chat from the Great Depression, I realize that the reason why I am vain is because I am so god damn lazy! I must cultivate some kind of fail safe rationale for being so god damn lazy.

I am sloth. Hear me roar. In time gone past too big to ignore. Extra syllable there. Sorry.

And that would be a great procrastinating device: to come up with new lyrics that are the inverse of the original lyrics! Like "Sedition! Sedition" for the Fiddler on the Roof's "Tradition!" tune, or singing only "unforgettable" and stopping when covering Nat Kind Cole's "Unforgettable".

This could take some time. Of which I have plenty. I have plumbed Face Book, I now have entered the world of blogs and the formatting possibilities and the obligation to post for my audience of 2 or 3. I let my Twitter account languish because, just because. The Internet fails to provide me with stuff that really grabs me. I am too lazy to go the library and I figure that if I keep searching the Internet while have the TV on and surfing that the law of averages or the insistence of morons will result in something that captures my attention. My Face Book and my blog are a concession to creating content and, look, I am employing someone else's monetized scheme to do so.

Perhaps take pen to paper? Nah. Only for the checks I still write. I even complain about the length of time it takes to go through the answer tree and hold music to pay a bill by telephone. And I hate the adds that my bank or any other online entity throws at me when doing something online.

I have written things on my computer. But truly those are mostly emails, not counting Wall to Wall writings on Face Book or this four posted blog of mine.

I could sit and think. But my thinking now is interrupted by my insistent checking of my Iphone and my MacBook for my gmail, my yahoo, my Face Book, and ideally some refreshed articles of interest in my standing bookmarked pages. I am never still. And yet I accomplish nothing. My virtual me has quashed real substance.

I can't even stick to my subject line. This posting now belongs my earlier entry, "l Blog, Therefore I Am." But it's the same conclusion: my vanity buffet - all the distractions I set out and am now organically (sardonic use of the word) tied to - have led me to a void. This blog is part of my vanity buffet. I have created the buffet out of things Ifind interesting. I am not learning anything, I am not exposing myself to anything rigorous or rigorously new.

My vanity buffet is empty. And I still need to lose weight.

Snow Day



The DPS announced a snow day and then the school that falls within the ambit - so I thought as an attorney and eager to use that word - declared itself separate, de facto if not de jure - see? - also announced a snow day. And so I have two children at home with me for the duration. It was like the kids' version of New Year's Eve, with later than typical waking hours and, no doubt, late rising hours tomorrow. One child has crashed, the other insists on putting her imprint on newly claimed time. And my dog pretty much comports himself like always. Or toujours which almost rhymes with du jour as opposed to du jure.

I have spent time, lots and lots and lots of time on FB this evening. As kind of a toggle button to watching for the announcement of school closings on news sites. While watching "Millionaire Matchmaker", then "Cheers" and now a totally cheesy Ancient Greek film starring a blonde Natalie Woods and woops now it's worth watching a very young Paul Newman. I may be up for the duration. I have also intermittedly parented, which is a natural state after my full-on production of dinner and oversight of homework and in one child's case, activities. I have also given up on punctuation it seems.

The hush and dominance of snow over the activities of a region force me to recognize the value of my time, as the snow presents a cache of time spent differently than typical. And it seems I spend it like usual, like my dog.

Could I popularize a new meaning for "dog days"?

I should add that my dog is the ultimate omega dog. Bit redundant. I could get two snow days out of this.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I blog, therefore I am


I love snark and was first exposed to snark - and this observation obviates all the Trollope, Dickens, and Thackeray I read previously - was "Spy" magazine, the launching pad for, among other, E. Graydon Carter now at "Vanity Fair". Seemingly, he now subscribes to what he once snarked.

To truly snark is to hate and seek to undermine, to condescend to your target. To snark is to pass judgement and to be smug and snug in the seat from which judgement is passed. Perhaps Mr. Carter did not master snark, and was merely a poseur on his way up the glossy rag publishing chain. That sentence just now demonstrated snark on two fronts: (1) Mr. Carter's callowness; and (2) the hierarchy of print media. The immediately preceding sentence was not devoid of snark either, as it used the word "callowness".

I think the format of blogs helps to foster snark. This gives me some concern. A lot of concern. Because while I like to think of myself, and quite frankly probably need to think of myself, as a kind person, my tendency is totally towards snark. If I am writing alone and posting my thoughts with some degree of anonymity, I fear my niceness factor - or fiction; you choose. I refuse - will be mitigated if not quashed by snark.

I'm signing up.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Three Faces of FaceBook




First, blogger.com has made huge advances in simplicity, intuitiveness and scope of offerings - as have the ancillary sites - since I last actively and one-time blogged a long time ago. Second, thank you to L, L, M, G and E for inspiring me to blog.

Third is my titled point. I blog because FaceBook has become a safe place. I feel as if I'd alienate my 'friends' if I were to post my thoughts and my proferred links on my FaceBook page. I have friends who have very different politics than I, and I don't want to offend and then I think that I have chosen cowardice. Then I rationalize that a Facebook "wall" is not the likely vehicle for substantive discussion and that, perhaps, posting on FaceBook is a poor substitute for real dialogue. Then I remember that I am pretty much addicted to FaceBook. Which raises all sorts of questions about how engaged I am with the world. And is the world becoming more and more - and inalterably, inevitably so - a virtual experience?

It's all too depressing. I can't be the real me. The virtual me is not the real me. And the real me does not want to offend anyone in the virtual world. I need multiple personalities.

So I am going to try to carve out me in this blog.