Block Party

Dear J-

One of the latest batches of books contains the recommended Making the “Terrible” Twos Terrific (John Rosemond), which is written to help you understand what must be going on in that churning period between twenty-four and thirty-six months. Much of it is common sense — in developing your sense of independence, there are several milestones — sleeping alone, potty training — that must be achieved without crushing that independence. Therefore, in outthinking a two-year-old (it’s harder than it looks, honestly), you have to appeal to them feeling grown up.

The book is liberally sprinkled with Rosemond’s strong opinions — daycare, an evil to be avoided at all costs; co-sleeping might as well be an invitation to years of therapy. We’re not innocent of any of those (it did take a few days to break her of needing to sleep with us, and we continue, as we have for nearly two years now, to keep her in day care. The one that we’re most guilty of, though, is the TV watching — he claims it’s deceptive in being able to keep children calm, and giving you a break. Indeed, it’s more like creating a zombie (interaction drops to nothing, slack-jawed staring does not count) for the time it’s on, and then an amped-up monster is on your hands the rest of the time.

He goes on, in fact, to recommend that all toys invented after 1955 be taken out of the house and replaced by simple ones (Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, LEGO bricks, and wooden blocks) that spark imagination. So I tried the blocks today; he may be on to something here (there was still some TV, but it was much more limited than typical in this house), as figgy was enthralled with the destruction of the soaring structures I’d set up. Good for me — keeping me involved and interested instead of the semi-comatose state I slip into after the umpteenth iteration of the latest obsession (WALL-E has replaced Kung Fu Panda); good for her — excited by the world around her instead of the world in the little black box.

Mike

Kübler-Ross Model

Dear J-

The Kübler-Ross model of work interactions, as I’ve pouted this week:

• Denial
  • “I did that already, didn’t I?!”
  • “I’ll get to it, um, tomorrow.”
  • “Can’t we just do it next week?”
• Anger
  • “Well, if you can do it better, do it yourself, then!”
  • “Why is this pager STILL going off?”
  • “It’s already done (so please stop ringing, phone)!”
• Bargaining
  • “I’ll do that — tomorrow — if you’ll just check this for me …”
  • “Sure, top of the pile, but I’m going to need you to …”
  • “Hey … you’re not REALLY busy, are you?”
  • “Okay, I can stay if we can trade time off and arrange some form of transportation, convince my wife to leave work early, and … what, I can go?”
• Depression
  • “Fine. Give it to me.”
  • “I already have that.”
  • “I looked at that, um, last year, and here’s my writeup …”
• Acceptance
  • “Fine, give it to me.”
  • “No, really, it’s no problem.”
  • “Please come over.”
  • “No, really, what do I have to do to convince you?”

Mike

Last Car Driving

Dear J-

Get up early enough and it’s easy to convince yourself that some kind of apocalypse happened overnight or — more happily — that you’ve managed to sleep through to Saturday and the world stretches out before you as on a platter.  Some mornings I don’t see evidence of another human until I get to the Park’n'Ride lot, yet the streams of traffic passing on the freeway might as well be piloted by robots for all the humanity they evince: just metal beetles hurrying away from the light, rubber wheels scrambling madly.

Speaking of which, Ford’s new Taurus is rolling out; I understand that we should be suitably celebratory that in this, Ford’s flagship sedan, we have a car that can sit up against its fellow large sedans — see Dodge Charger, Chrysler 300, Chevrolet Impala, etc. — with its head held high.  Much has been made of the style, which is in keeping with the Ford Interceptor concept from 2007, and adheres to the latest Ford design language, but the sharp contrast with 1985 and the first-generation Taurus for me is that the Taurus is now a trend follower (it looks like a Fusion, slightly inflated in all dimensions) rather than a trend setter.  The other worrying statistic is the weight — more than two tons in SHO trim; granted, the SHO packs Ford’s new EcoBoost twin-turbo V-6 and 365 horsepower, but where did all the weight come from (if you want to compare, Taurus SHO has gained 25% in weight over ten years — 1999:  3329 lbs; 2010:  4368 lbs.)?  Granted, it’s similar in weight to the big LX-platform Mopars (two tons, give or take), but gearheads like to brag that there’s no replacement for displacement for engine size; we’re standing that on its head:  for fuel economy standards, mass is gonna cost you gas.

The clever engineers should be able to balance safety (systems, structure) and weight without resorting to specifying that everyone shall drive tanks — the United States M-1 Abrams, for instance, uses a gas turbine engine for 1000 horsepower, an honest 60 MPH on the road, and fuel economy better measured in gallons per mile.  Despite lacking airbags, I would venture that it would survive a crash pretty well.  I understand the need to hail an American car champion, but the Taurus isn’t going to be it — it’s a cosmetic re-skinning of the old Volvo platform underneath the Five Hundred.  For Ford, think Focus or Fiesta instead:  not the traditional big American sedan, but CAFE heroes with reasonable space and style; we associate size with value, but it’s time to break that habit, whether with food or cars.

Mike

Debit Credit

Dear J-

I spent a lot of money today — on plastic — and so I got to hear the query “debit or credit?” a lot.  The question dogged me from dentist (I love my dentist, but she has a disconcerting habit of talking about me as though I’m some sort of cretin ["Michael is a bleeder ... and a mouth-breather, so that doesn't help."] while I’m in the chair, mutely protesting with two hands in my mouth) to doctor (more tests) to smog check (hooray, finally passed!) to tune-up (oil, radiator, transmission, and differential fluid all changed) to bookstore (more on this later), I flash the plastic and get that same challenge.  Debit or credit.  It makes me think of a check register, where you write down the innumerable debits paid to various businesses for items both needed and not, and sprinkled in here and there, the chocolate chips of credits:  paychecks, grandma’s birthday money, gifts from folks who’ve given up on guessing preferences.  I understand that the credit in credit card implies “I Owe You” but damn if it wouldn’t feel better to have the positive credits of a check register.

I like used books in general, and the Book-Off near our house in particular; it’s staffed by folks who don’t look askance at you for taking your time browsing through various titles trying to decide, and the shelves are unusually tidy — while I’m all for the occasional treasure hunt, it’s hard to buy books you can’t find.  Despite never quite knowing what it is I want as I arrive, I always seem to walk out with more than I had counted on (today, catching up on Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and the earlier Mail — now that episode in KCDS volume 4 makes sense).  I started in on used textbooks in college because they were cheaper, but I stayed around because the previous owner(s)’ underlining and highlighting were interesting — occasionally helpful, but each one was a mystery story:  why that phrase or equation?  I wonder about the folks giving up personalized books; it’s not in the same category as re-gifting, and it’s impossible to keep everything you’re ever gifted, but something inside me is always sad to open a used book to see some personal inscription inside.

It’s the end of the day and as part of the traditional taking inventory, I get to recount the things I did; between morning errands and lunch, I didn’t get home until roughly 2:30.  I still had time to break open the books and blaze through Ed Lin’s first novel (Waylaid; now need to dig up the movie somewhere; I believe Netflix is going to start calling before long), but caught myself whistling as I stepped out to walk the dogs later this afternoon.  That’s when it hit me — not only had I managed to successfully run all the errands on my menu (and therefore had a productive day), I’d managed to also steal a day from work as well.  No spinning my wheels trying to gain traction on the intractable issues; debit or credit?

Mike

Chinatown Kid

Dear J-

You know, J-, as well as I how comfortably suburban we grew up — large lots, green lawns, and shady, quiet streets.  We spent summers in the gentle grace of screen doors, our cologne the sharp chlorine of community pools; smelling distant thunder as a ionizing green threat.  And yet I somehow found myself more often than not in Seattle’s International District — Chinatown, if you will — dragged along as part my parents’ quest to find bargains for the store.  As an outsider entering that (as National Geographic put it, in November 1975) gilded ghetto, we were privy to a surprising number of behind the scenes deals.

I never saw it as a huge imposition until I was thirteen or fourteen and the prospect of ten hours on the road and endless afternoons spent double-parked, wary eyes on the lookout for chalk-wielding patrollers, loading our van to the gills with boxes, bins, and bags marked in foreign characters stretched away into drudgery.  Before that I loved rolling into Seattle mid-morning, stepping amongst the sussurous pigeons in the park; there would always be an opportunity to have an amazing lunch — ordering food is itself an art, you know.  On that strength, indeed, I’ve added retirement in a San Francisco Chinatown walk-up to the list of places to experience life (right there next to Crescent City, New Orleans, and Santa Fe).

This is a Bust: A Novel by Ed Lin

Ed Lin has done two favors for me; he’s reawakened the memories (waiting in line to get the right egg tarts — mentally comparing all the other Chinatowns (Vancouver, San Francisco, Oakland, Boston) to that benchmark Seattle district — seeing past the funny names and fading bright paint to the palette of faces beneath) and he’s managed to excise the New York Chinatown of Year of the Dragon from my psyche — all this with two delirious nights spent with This is a Bust.  I ran across the name via back-posts of angryasianman, located copies of his work (his first novel is Waylaid), and devoured it faster than I expected.  Having read free eBooks (i.e. copyright-expired Project Gutenberg classics)  has made me a slow reader, right?  The mystery plotline was secondary to establishing Robert Chow’s Chinatown as a living, throbbing character — and the issues of race were handled with a realism (that is, without resorting to flat stereotypes) missing from the images and words passed down to me; I regard it as a personal tragedy that I know less about the Water Margin, Journey to the West, and the Three Kingdoms than about Norse mythology (thanks, Dungeons & Dragons).  Back to the novel, though — definitely worth digging up a copy for yourself.

Mike

Lights Wink

Dear J-

Lights wink on the horizon all the way up the coast; we pass through communities famed for surf and scenery, we drive on through the dawn and watch the day break anew.  Outlines are softer in the blowing mist.  Between the iron sky and gentle surf, life keeps hurrying along, trapped in painted metal boxes, destinations and deadlines foremost on the mind.  A river of headlights keeps flowing around us, past us, a steady metronomic beat keeping time to the expansion joints.

When we dream young, we dream big, of lands too vast to be walked, of limitless frontiers awaiting us over the next hill.  We learn that our ambitions are achievable and yet impossible:  pick a dream and prioritize, which one today, which ones tomorrow.  All around, the steady, measured pace of time slips past, and distance grows ever more intimidating.  If the universe is, as they postulate, ever expanding, sometimes it feels as though it’s relentlessly personal and immediate; from those quiet motions while the world is dark in your home to the daily commute.

We all live under the same sky; we all see the same moon and sun and stars spinning past at delirious speed.  We may be constrained, or if you rather, contained in this world, with a network of vehicles and communication tracing webs and connections to every point on the globe.  On a human scale, the distance we move under our own power may be minuscule compared to the tools we have at our disposal; the reach of mind and voice is immediate and visceral.  Hello again. Hi.  How are you?

Mike

Monday Blue

Dear J-

Monday again — a long confluence of events, from the long weekend coming to an end, to having to drive the vanpool, the long stream of Monday issues held over and awaiting a personal touch, and I didn’t get anything done today. Running in place while sitting down, we don’t seem to progress past the crisis of the moment; it’s been a full year since we rolled out this new system, and though it’s become familiar, we still struggle with mundane tasks.

It all feels the same; work is what you make of it, I guess, but each day is starting to feel interchangeable. We’re here at the end of the day, struggles done and house cooling, slowly winding down into night and planning the things I won’t have time to get around to tomorrow. I’m just so tired at this point; our stars keep tracing the same paths overhead, and we keep rolling the same stone uphill. I remind myself it’s been three years — but the last one’s been one long scramble after another; the first two varying degrees of panic over learning the nuances.

Tuesday and sleep will undoubtedly bring relief and re-belief; I wonder if I’m afraid of change, or if cautious is the new chic in this economic climate. What if I had to start over again? What if — who might — where can — why does — when we’re left wondering what’s on the other side of the fence, is it time to explore that other field? Perhaps it’s only Monday; perhaps it’s the lack of sleep and other incentives; perhaps it’s the repetition ad infinitum echoing as far as I can see.

Mike

Sunday Night

Dear J-

One of the things they gave us at our wedding was a set of wooden ducks, the reasoning being that they mate for life. We’ve spent the weekend together for the first time, well, since we went to San Jose a couple of weeks ago — but before that, theVet works half a day on Saturdays, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m in for Sunday work before much longer. The reality is that we spend time in different orbits most of the waking day, and at times it feels strange coming home and realizing how lucky I am.

Sometimes, together, we can tell what’s happening through the set of a jaw, or the snap of a snarky phrase: we struggle to suppress annoyance at the smallest things, we more than often fail, and we’ve still managed to fight for every dream together. It’s funny how synchronized our actions are at times; the silent communications keep us moving on, two pairs of hands working to make both our lives easier.

Mike

Fourth Forth

Dear J-

Before we had an anxiety-filled dog, I used to love the Fourth of July and all the trappings. Now, as the smell of burned gunpowder and low, distant rumbles (punctuated by sharp reports closer to home) roll in through the open windows, I can hardly wait to find the person who decreed that fireworks at 9PM was a great idea. Lots of ifs — if only there was some way to shut him down for the night, if only we could find some way to desensitize him (luckily, or perhaps unluckily, thunderstorms are a rare event around here, although Sea World does have nightly fireworks throughout the summer).

Speaking of which, after nearly eight years in San Diego, we finally went today. Unlike the other attractions we’ve been to, Sea World is relatively flat (and surprisingly compact), making it easy to flit around like we did today — we kept finding things across the park to go to next (there’s tons of shows, each seemingly timed to keep you hustling through). As we continue to provide our own stimulus package to the local attractions (how patriotic!), we end up with ready excuses — for season passes, for silly little rides, for exclaiming awe in the smallest delights.

We get to open wide and devour life with exuberance; even if the nights are filled with overlong tugs-of-war (how often / how quickly can I get my parents to come running to my room?) over sleep, even if I keep myself over-wound, bouncing between anxiety-filled dog and daughter tonight, I have to remind myself that it only lasts a few hours at the outside. It’s a tiny investment in fun the rest of the day, so there’s no reason to fret; as the one with the supposedly long view, I should be able to see the pot of gold doesn’t lie at the end of the rainbow — it’s all around us already.

Mike

Scatter Brain

Dear J-

There are couple of lists scattered around the house — one a shopping list, the other showing the free parking lots for the San Diego County Fair we attended last weekend — both carefully prepared, written, ready to go, and yet they’ve both gone unused, victim to my increasingly faulty short-term memory. Distractions abound as we get ready to head out of the house; between putting together a bag of milk and snacks, getting the dogs ready, and gearing up (I could use a purse, I suppose), I’m surprised we don’t leave more things at home in the rush out the door.

On more than one occasion, theVet has jokingly accused me of being dead inside; we were discussing what happens after death — as I’ve never given it much thought (or worry, for that matter) I couldn’t say that it’s caused me many sleepless nights. Part of it is that it’s not something you can get a whole lot of precise eyewitness reports back from; the other part is that I’ve got a bit of fatalism in me — I can’t control everything, and I suspect that it’s going to happen from something I’ve forgotten, at any rate. It’s not carte blanche to do whatever I want, mind you — the cosmic slate is not wiped clean by death, let alone having to live in the present.

My brother, having found a new job, is moving to Taiwan in a week. The economy keeps moving in mysterious ways; I, faced with the prospect of possibly not seeing him and his family (it feels remote — we just saw them two weeks ago, and therefore the recent past trumps the unreasonable future, right?) for longer than I can imagine, am now wondering how long a flight figgy can take, how light we can travel. The truth is that with an entire ocean between us, chances are that until we’re all able to live out of a suitcase or two, heading overseas is going to stay difficult — but I’ll find a way to make it work.

It’s not dead inside; inside is a roiling tumult of thought, after all. I may leave the mental lists — those external devices — without batting an eye on the outside, but these things sink down deep where it’s hard to ignore despite what my face says.

Mike