Trying to Stop being Clever

Last night I was sitting in the living room playing Angry Birds. Delilah kept coming up to me with toys, telling me a little something about each one. It was non-stop, one right after another. Finally I said, “and why are we doing an inventory of all your toys?” She looked down at the heart-shaped comb she was holding and said, “I just want your attention.” I was struck with the realization that I’m a bad daddy. I immediately turned off the game and engaged in conversation with her. I’m just glad she is clear-headed enough to tell me what was really going on. With that kind of honesty and insight I feel it’s unlikely she is going to act out in dangerous ways. I can pray, anyway. I love that kid so much.

We look at ourselves, and we see only the surface, we see only what we look like, particularly our flaws, the things we wish were different about ourselves. We often don’t think that, when others look at us, they see past our appearance alone and they see all the things that define us as who we are. All of our personality, our history, our mannerisms, they all add up to the person they’ve come to know. We look in the mirror and we see, for example, our hair. Then we see that it’s us with the horrible hair. Others see first that it’s us, then they may notice the hair. We take for granted that we are going to see ourselves in the mirror, while others don’t know if they will see us at all in any given day, so when they do, the first thing they think is that, oh, you’re here. With that comes many of the thoughts and feelings they have about you, what they might say to you, what they might ask you, what they want to show you. We skip all of that and go straight to judging ourselves based on...

I watched The Wall last night and this morning. I didn’t watch it twice, it just took me that long to get through it (for family reasons). It evokes so many feelings in me. Not to say that my life in any way mirrors that of “Pink.” But I saw it as a child (I was 11 when it came out) and it had a lot of impact on me at the time because of so much subject matter that I was only marginally familiar with, and because of the unusual, mysterious animation. It was the first time I had seen a movie which incorporated an album with which I was overly familiar. So when I initially saw it it was deeper than just seeing a movie for the first time, it already had a backstory of a sort because of the experience of hearing the album many times, and tying in the emotions that brought out in me. So when I saw it this last time it not only had the bundled effect of reminding me of when I would listen to the album in my room at my dad’s house, and when I would watch the movie with my friends, b...

My daughter is amazing. When people compliment her to me I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react. Yes, she’s of my genes, and I’m partly responsible for her beauty, not with anything I’ve done, but even so, when someone says, “You have beautiful eyes” it’s not because you’ve worked hard to sculpt the eyes you have (typically), but still you say, “Thank you.” And yes, Delilah has my eyes. And they are beautiful. But if they say she has beautiful eyes, is it appropriate for me to say “thank you”? It seems like it, but then I don’t deserve credit for my own eyes let alone hers. People say she’s so smart, and she is, but can I take credit for that? If they say she’s very well behaved, it seems even more awkward to say “thank you” for that, but in fact it’s more appropriate because her behavior is one thing I do have something to do with. More often than “thank you” though, I find myself responding to “she’s so smart, she’s so beautiful, she’s so sweet, so well-spoken” with, “Yes s...

Great things happening at home. Delilah is getting so big, so grown up. I’m starting to feel it. Starting to get sad about the loss of innocence. She hasn’t lost that much of it, but the little bits are starting to hit home. She’s recently started saying that she doesn’t love Woody anymore. Seems innocuous enough, but let me put some perspective on it. When she was really little, like a year old, she would sit and watch, completely absorbed, any of the Toy Story movies. Woody was her favorite. Then, after seeing Toy Story 2 about 7 million times, she really took to Jessie. But she still loved Woody, the ol’ Woodster. So nowadays she’s saying “I don’t love Woody. I love Jessie and Buzz.” That’s fine, of course. It’s up to her to decide who and what she loves (we’ve even had to accept and not punish her for saying, “I don’t love Great Gramma!” because we can’t change that), but it makes me sad, and reminds me of the birthday I had over 30 years ago when my brother gave...

What must it be like to come up a geek and find yourself in fashion? When I was young we struggled, and then came Revenge of the Nerds, which I think was a big turning point. Decades later Napoleon Dynamite comes out and the point is driven further into the general consciousness: it’s cool to be geeky. Do the dorky kids of today even recognize the sacrifices, the challenges, of those of us who paved the way for them? I doubt it. One of the charming things about geeks is their lack of awareness of current trends. Well, as someone who spent his formative years around Ham radios and early home computers, let me tell you this victory was fairly easily won. Of course, I didn’t fit neatly into any one category. Sure, I was a geeky nerd sort, but I was also a member of the “slacker” crowd, being generally dirty and stoned, and I was also overlapping the border of “heavy metaller” or whatever they were called, with my Judas Priest t-shirt and my long-ish hair. I wasn’t trying to not ...

I’m feeling really melancholy today. I don’t know why. I don’t think it’s any single thing in particular, but a variety of things weighing on me. Maybe it’s partly the downer of having so much band activity concentrated in a short time, to suddenly having none. I know part of it is my being overwhelmed by the room project at home and the hurdles associated with that. I have nothing to look forward to this weekend except house cleaning. That wouldn’t be so bad if I knew where to put all this stuff that needs to find a place to go. A little of it is a feeling of powerlessness, as my desires seem to have little influence over my course of action. Even my actions seem to be powerless. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels to no effect. People seem to be treating me with an indifference or even mild distaste lately. I must be doing something wrong, but I don’t seem to have too many options of what I can do. I’m trying to make a difference in the life I live with my wife and daughte...