Archives for June 2010

The few readers who truly know me understand that while I take certain liberties with my stories there are some things that I don’t exaggerate. I don’t fear confrontation and rarely back down. In a disagreement I am more than a handful and I prefer not to be involved in stupid disagreements.

If arguing with a fool means that you are an idiot than I have earned the title of “stupid idiot” because I have wasted more than a few words and minutes in disagreements with fools. Fortunately age and life experience have helped to educate me so that I find myself in such foolish predicaments far less frequently than ever before.

Most of the time I try very hard to avoid engaging in such silly situations. I have nothing to prove and no reason to waste my energy dealing with those people that create disharmony in my life. But sometimes I find myself drawn into it and forced to remind myself that sometimes when you win you still lose.

Such was the situation I found myself in this afternoon. Stuck between a rock and a hard place I responded to the intentional provocation that was thrust upon me. My response leapfrogged ugly and went straightnow  to nasty. It is not something that I am proud of. And though I had made it eminently clear that if this disagreement ever came about it would flow as it did I am still disappointed.

What have I gained from it? Not much, if anything. If it were a prizefight you would have seen the judges announce my name as the victor by knockout. It wasn’t even close and it probably never should have happened.

And now to quote my grandfather (may he rest in peace) I’ll play out the hand using the cards I was dealt. Only time will tell if this disagreement was truly worth engaging in or if it was something other than that.

The only upside to it was that it provided a great lesson for my children, especially my son. He didn’t see it and knows nothing about it, but it was the source of my thought that sometimes when you win you lose. So I’ll keep my fingers crossed that if nothing else he learned something from our conversation.

That wouldn’t fix everything, but it would be a bit of a mitigating factor. But for now we shall just wait and see.

A thousand years ago during the days when no one called me dad and I was just your run of the mill single guy I had lots of opinions about children. In particular I had strong feelings about how they should behave in public and thought poorly of parents who couldn’t control them.

It seemed to me like there were far too many examples of parents who didn’t care what their children did. Restaurants, airplanes and movies seemed to be filled with children running wild and parents who were oblivious to the chaos their offspring were creating. I didn’t understand why this was so. It wasn’t how I was raised and had my siblings or I tried any of that our parents would have stopped it immediately.

Now years later I understand that sometimes there are situations that arise in which parents find themselves struggling to keep their children from running amok. Sometimes it is because the child has a behavioral issue that makes it more challenging to be well behaved in public. Other times it is because the kid/parent has reached their breaking point and they are melting down.

I get it. I understand. I have been there. Been at that place where I am so exhausted I feel like I can’t deal and the kids get a moment to run wild. I have been there when they have lost it and aren’t able to get themselves in check.

So I have some understanding and sympathy for parents. My rule of thumb is if you are trying to help your child you get a break from me. But what I cannot tolerate is when parents don’t do anything. I can’t stomach the idea of children running a household because mom/dad aren’t willing to do the work.

Discipline comes with the job, it is part and parcel. And discipline doesn’t have to mean corporal punishment. You don’t have to beat a child to help them learn what is wrong/right. Corporal punishment merits its own post- I don’t want to get caught up in that now.

Rather let’s talk about coping skills for a moment because it is a key element of parenting. If you don’t teach your child how to lose you are failing them. If you don’t teach your child how to deal with not getting everything they want you are failing them. If you don’t teach your child how to deal with hard times you are failing them.

Those are hard lessons that aren’t easy for adults. They aren’t easy for anyone, but they are critical skills to learn. We can’t protect our kids from everything. We won’t always be there to save them from “life.” So it is up to us to give them the tools to deal with whatever comes along.

Coping skills make for happier children.

Sometimes the only reason to travel is for the gifts that it provides a writer. The opportunity to find yourself lost in a new world filled with mystery and adventure is indescribable, or so it seems to me. Thousands of miles from home I stare out the window and embrace the majesty of the scenery.

I love this mountain setting, green trees, hills and a lake. I love walking around a quiet town and discovering little shops and the people that run them. The lake calls to me, begs me to come immerse myself in it. Somewhere there are fish that wish to do battle with me.

Outside the sun has begun to warm the earth and my children are exposed to things, people and a place that I know in a different way. They walk and look around and find themselves granted a glimpse of something that their father loves.

Too young to appreciate what it means to me now there will come a day when they are old enough to understand that the way to see inside dad’s head is to spend some time in these places. They’ll follow the trails and in the silence learn some of what I find so beautiful.

Endless hikes that take us to places where you cannot hear cars, trucks or airplanes provide a setting that my beloved LA cannot match. There are multiple sides and levels to me- there are things that I want them to share with me but I don’t know how to do it other than in this manner.

Experience. That is the only thing I can offer that might provide the background and feeling that I want them to have.

In my dreams I often think that the life of a writer, the one that I could live would be like this. Trips to places both near and fat. Moments where we step into a different place, time and way of life. These things call to me. The idea of having a cabin in the woods where I can escape to do nothing but live and write is something that I want.

So as I sit here flinging out these silly musings I remind myself that I tell the children that part of living means trying to find a way to live your dreams and not dream your life. That is advice that I work on trying to follow myself.

I think that I am doing it. It may be slow, but I am finding ways to make it happen. And that progress makes me happy, makes me smile. Impatient though I may be, it is good to know that I can live the way I teach my children to.

It has been fun kids. Enjoy….

Video doesn’t lie, but I sure wish that it did. Been traveling with one of them handy-dandy Flip video camcorders. Been a recording fiend, taking all sorts of videos of the kids doing this and that. Later I sneak onto to the computer and play with it. Editing clips, adding music and turning the raw footage into something a little bit more exciting.

It is something that I enjoy quite a bit, this editing stuff. The videos are just a different medium I use to create. They serve as another tool that I can use to express myself and I love that.

But they also lend irrefutable proof that I am not 25 anymore. The man I see on the video looks…old. He looks like one of those fathers I used to say that I’d never become. He is not as smooth and graceful as he appears in my mind. He needs to go on a diet because his health is too important.

That is not to say that he is morbidly obese or hideously repulsive. Most people wouldn’t say that and he wouldn’t care if they did. But his ego is far too large to allow for this to continue. If it wasn’t would he continue to speak of himself in the third person. I doubt it.

What can I say. I don’t like seeing myself on camera anymore. Dad looks like a dad and I don’t like it. So the realy question is what am I going to do about it. Will I be content to make fun of myself in a blog post or will I take action.

Well, action is always preferable so inaction so now it is time to prove that words have weight behind them, no pun intended. Time to to buck up and part of that means getting a decent night’s sleep. See you in the a.m.

Let’s pretend that it is not quite the witching hour but that it is quickly approaching. We’ll ignore that after a week on the east coast I haven’t adjusted to the time zone. It is not because I can’t or as if I am suffering from jet lag because I am not. Can’t really say why I haven’t just, that I am operating in a different place that lies somewhere in the twilight zone.

We’ll spend a moment talking about the week that was and how cool it was to see my nieces and nephews. We’ll talk about how Uncle Jack was in rare form and why my sisters loved/hated having me live with them. We’ll tell stories about endless hours at the lake and at the pool. Share memories of making s’mores, Rocky Mountain Toast and stories I told about when we were little boys and girls.

And I’ll share my frustration of having very little privacy and how I am far less tolerant of some things than I used to be. It is not so easy living in a house that is not your own. My sisters are great hostesses and do a wonderful job of making you feel comfortable and wanted. But still it is not my place and I have to adjust to different ways of doing things. Not always so easy.

While we stroll down memory lane we’ll take a look at a 300 mile car trips that took far longer than it should have. We’ll talk about being forced to park on the freeway for 1.5 and how crazy it was. Might even talk about the children and their requests to use the facilities.

Under normal circumstances you’d merely exit the freeway and find a convenient restroom. Not so easy when traffic stops, people exist their cars and mill about aimlessly.

And many hours later you too might find yourself typing in a dark hotel room. You might look to your left and see a ten year old boy sleeping diagonally in the bed that you are supposed to share with him. And you might wonder how you are going to possibly sleep with him practicing Krav Maga in  his sleep. Or more importantly wonder how many new aches and pains will materialize after such a night.