The Writing Life: January 2004 Archives

My oldest little girl turns four tommorrow. We had her birthday party today—in the freezing Missouri weather.

It wasn't an elaborate affair: just family. She's a Barbie fanatic, so her presents were all things Barbie. Even though she gripes about all the toys strewn about the house, my wife, in her infinite wisdom, got M this Barbie pool that you put (real) water in. For some bizarre reason, she actually let the dodo's play with this thing in the living room. Now I can't walk through the house in my socks because the carpet is completely soaked. I'm still not sure what she's on to allow this to happen.

Having three older brothers, I was worried about M being a tomboy. No worries, there: she's 100% pure pink-princess-girly-girl. She can still hold her own with her brothers, though. I've seen my 10 year-old bawl like his 5 year-old brother because she put a hurt on him. He's a skinny little twirp like I was, so that's not all that difficult to do.

Watching your kids grow up is very sobering. It makes you introspective of your own life and what's important to you. Career and hobbies take a backseat (or should, anyway) to the needs and wants of those little rugrats.

I'm not saying a person shouldn't pursue work they enjoy, mostly for the psychological well-being of those around them; but once you have kids, you simply can't raise them into being responsible adults while pursuing your own selfish desires. Once you bring new life into the world, you're committed to taking on something that a lot of people simply can't, or don't want to, handle. Being a parent, not just a supplier of genetic material, demands tremendous effort and self-discipline. You have to sacrifice time, energy, money (lots of that), job opportunities, and your own temporal enjoyment.

It's an endeavor that is worth the effort. If you can't handle it, though, then do the world a favor: don't even think about having kids. If you can, then hang on. It's going to be a long, wild ride.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this.

I was talking to a friend of mine at work and it turns out he's a mail-order minister. Yeah, you heard that right: a government-recognized mail-order, ordained minister. I found the website of the place that ordained him and it opened up a whole new world to me; a world I never knew existed. Simply fill out the online form and: voila! You're an ordained minister (little "o", little "m", in my opinion). You can do weddings, funerals, counselling, and perform sundry other clergerical duties. You can even apply for 501c3 tax-exempt status and start your own cult…I mean church. I'm just about crazy enough to try it just for the giggles.

My friend did this because he wanted to have a celtic wedding and was having trouble finding a minister to perform the ceremony (dressed up like a monk, no less) so he had a back-up plan: marry himself. That came out wrong: serve as minister at his own wedding. That's better. He didn't need to in the end, a friend performed the service. Sounds kind of new-agey to me.

Don't get discouraged if you don't believe in anything, though. No one gets left out. Adherence to a religion or belief is not a prerequisite. You could be the Maharishi of the Uniformiversalist Church of Unbelief if you got the hankering. Sounds great, no?

I think it sounds like a load of horse shi'ite, myself. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I've read Dante's Inferno. Being burned alive for all eternity just doesn't sound like much of a vacation from this life to me.

Maybe I should try out this mail-order minister thing. Reverend Jonathan L. Brisbin, minister of the First Latter-Day Church of the Intellectually Malnourished of the order of the Pen and Quill—Reformed. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

I'm reading this awesome book that a friend at work loaned me. It's called Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman.

I absolutely love fantasy and this book is a treat. It's about a securities trader that gets involved with folks who live in London Below; a magical place that exists inside the London underground, but Aboveworlders can't see. I'm about halfway through and I would recommend it to anyone that likes fantasy and British authors.

I have a friend at work that I visit with frequently. He's a B. If you know anything about the B family, you'd probably be shaking your head slowly up and down with smug understanding and mumbling something like: "I see…"

I don't blame K for his poor life choices. As the saying goes: "It's all in how yer raised." He started taking his uncle's drugs at 8, graduating to hardcore meth and cocaine use at 10, or so. At 14, he was a mean mo-fo, just like his father and uncles. When he decided he'd had enough of school for the day, no one stood in his way when he just walked out. Finally he left and didn't come back. It wouldn't have done the school any good to call his parents. I went to school with his uncles and the Bs usually laugh in the face of authority instead of respecting it.

What else is an impressionable young man going to learn, but what his family teaches him?

He is an excellent example of a system gone wrong. No, not the public school system. I could rant for days about public school, but that's not what I'm talking about here: I'm talking about our system. The system we set up to pigeon-hole and keep people in their place. A system we (as the components of Our Society) not only design, but enforce. The system screwed him when he took a test at our factory to get hired on full time.

I don't like this test. It was designed by some PhD psychologists with way too few wackos to diagnose and drug up. They ask you all kinds of questions about your attitudes about people who work only for a paycheck, rating your personal honesty, and sundry other "measures" of your personality. That's all well and good, but K didn't pass it.

Despite dropping out of high school at 14, K exhibits an intelligence far beyond The System's ability to afford him opportunities to use it. He told me some of the answers to these personality questions. When asked what he thought about people who work only for a paycheck, he responded by telling the questioner that, if you get right down to it, we all just work for a paycheck; but eventually, you realize that there's more to life than that. I was surprised at the depth of his answer, and slightly jealous that I hadn't thought of it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the "right" answer.

When K hurt his shoulder at work and had to wear a brace that held his left arm against his body, he didn't go home and whine about it. He came back to work from the emergency room and picked up a broom. And a shovel. And worked the rest of the night. And the next nights. In fact, he worked harder with only one arm than a lot of people do with two. But we can't hire him on full-time (yet) because he didn't pass his personality test. We let hard workers go for stupid reasons and keep the flipperheads. What's wrong with this picture?

I'm not pretending I could do better if they just put me in charge. I don't want that job. The perfect employee—besides being a figment of your imagination—is like a pure-bred animal: whiny, hard to please, and high maintenance. I'd take a hard-working, intelligent, former drug-abuser and high school dropout over an mediocre-working, intelligent, but psychologically acceptable employee any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I work every other Sunday night, so I know what I'm talking about.

I know I'm getting older, but I just can't believe another year has come and gone so quickly. I mean, wasn't it just the other day that my fourth-grader was born? I don't remember the birth because I was in basic training; but it does seem like he was a baby just a few days ago. Grandpa was still alive, Dad had a beard, and we had at least some money in the bank. My, how times change.

I've been keeping a closer eye on the goings-on in the political world lately, which is strange, because I don't really care about that stuff, though it does pass the time. Don't get me wrong: I do care who gets elected to what and who's saying what about who. I didn't used to, though, so I'm not sure why I should care now—at this point in my life. Maybe it just gives me some distraction from the hum-drum. Of course, if I said that out loud, my wife would have a few hundred ideas of things I could do to pass the time besides checking drudgereport.com every 30 minutes.

Have you noticed how un-kid-friendly PlayStation 2 games have become lately? There's a few stupid ones out for little tykes, but most of the ones my children would be interested in playing are rated "T" ("Teen", for those of you non-PS2 folks). Some of the better ones are even rated "M" ("Mature"). We don't play those unless I've screened them first. My kids do like SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALS, which is rated "M", but that's the only concession to the higher-rated games I'm willing to make.

I shot for the moon the other day. I submitted a short story to The New Yorker. I'm trying not to get my hopes up or even think about it, but it's inevitable. Will they buy it? Will they say they like it, but it's not really for them? Will they say it needs work and I suck as a writer? I should stop worrying about it, but I really can't help myself. We'll see in a couple of weeks.

[tags]basic training, playstation 2, navy seals, playstation, the new yorker magazine, inevitability[/tags]