Dave vs. The Looming Specter of his Mortality

I was in a lousy mood last week. January really dragged-- lots of gray and damp weather. No joyful snowfall. The park is a muddy goose-shit filled swamp. The ticks haven't even gone dormant. And I was scheduled for an MRI on my shoulder on Friday. I expected bad news, as the doctor suspected a tear in either a rotator cuff injury or a labral tear. A rotator cuff injury would require serious PT and a labral tear would most likely need surgery.

My shoulder has been injured since the summer. I hurt it during a tennis match, screwing around with a topspin one-handed backhand. I can't get any juice on my serve (and I can't chuck a football with any velocity either). This shoulder injury (and my impending 50th birthday) have been really weighing on me. I'm not ready to hang up my racket yet. Beating my kids is too much fun-- and I've only got a few years left where I'll be able to do that (consistently). Or perhaps my run is over-- my shoulder burnt out-- and I won't get a chance to fade away.

I played indoor soccer well last Sunday, which should have bolstered my spirits-- but when I was crossing the ball, I caught the lip of a gym door with my toe-- and while I didn't hurt myself enough to stop playing, my ankle and knees were sore for days. I felt really old all week (until I drank too much Thursday night . . . oddly, Friday morning my knees were no longer sore).

I'm no dummy, so I started preparing for the worst a couple weeks ago. There's only one way to fight the looming specter of mortality: keep busy. My first project was to use my left hand as much as possible. Brushing my teeth, driving, pulling the wet laundry out of the washer, etc. I even started shooting darts left-handed-- which actually works fine unless I'm trying to hit the bullseye-- and I played tennis left-handed a couple times with my son Ian. My groundstrokes are pretty much the same-- I could always hit a decent lefty forehand and a lefty two-handed backhand is similar to a righty forehand-- but learning to serve lefthanded is a bitch. I went down to the park and practiced and I felt like a spaz. This article inspired me to keep at it. My left shoulder still has a lot of gas left in the tank, but I'll need a lot of mental fortitude to develop the fine motor skills necessary to play well lefty.

I've been preparing in several other ways for my impending midlife crisis. I don't want to resort to the typical shit: prostitutes, alcoholism, drag-racing, and dog-fighting, so I've implemented a preemptive strike on my mid-life crisis.

Project #1:

I've switched my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) from a PC to an iMac. I'm using Logic now instead of Cakewalk Sonar. I'm watching tutorial videos at the gym and learning a lot. I still don't know what I'm doing with Smart Tempo and Flex-Time, but I'm trying. Learning the new platform is keeping me off the streets and keeping my brain away from early onset dementia.

Project #2:

I'm reading some big books. I normally value quantity over quantity (aside form War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, and Infinite Jest). I'm barrelling through Uncle Tom's Cabin-- it's gripping-- and then I've got Tom Jones queued up on my Kindle.

In meatspace, I'm reading this absurd book.

This is mainly to irritate my fellow Philosophy teacher Stacey-- I've claimed that once I finish the book, she's not allowed to teach the class any long (unless she refers to me as The Philosophical Overlord). When I know Stacey's about to come into the office, I like to put my feet up, read something obtuse aloud, and brandish my new knowledge. A.C. Grayling is actually pretty entertaining-- for a philosopher-- although I skimmed the section on Empedocles.

Project #3:

Apparently, Google Play Music is going extinct. I've already been through this once with Rdio.

Remember Rdio?

No?

Serendipitously, my buddy Whitney just gave me a gift voucher for Spotify, so I've switched over. It's great, but I'm transferring playlists and massaging the algorithm-- so I'm spending a lot of time "hearting" songs and putting them on various playlists. I'm impressed with what Spotify spits out once you spend a little time on it. This project is not keeping me off the streets-- I use Spotify while I'm walking and driving-- so I'm working hard not to screw around with it while I'm driving and to look up once in a while when I'm crossing the street.

Project #4

So I was all depressed Thursday, because of the MRI on Friday. I drank too much and stayed out too late, and by the time I raced out of school and got to University Orthopedics, I was groggy and tired and hungry. They had a cooking show on in the waiting room. Guy Fieri ate various kinds of barbecued meats. By the time they called me, I was salivating.

They took me in, I put my valuables in a locker, and the guy told me the machine was a little loud. He handed me a pair of earphones. I lay on the sliding bed, my shoulder in the cup, and he slid me in. He gave me a little emergency switch and told me if I had any problem, to press it. I wondered why. Until I got in there.

I'm not sure if being tired and hungover was bane or blessing. The top of the cylinder was an inch or two from my nose. And the machine was LOUD. Not a little loud. SUPER-LOUD! Science-fiction loud. Weird grinding and banging and revving noises. And the music in the headphones was awful. Cheesy piano, occasionally interrupted by ads. Yuck. I didn't press the little button (or move at all) but I wanted to. Twenty-five minutes later, I was out and on my way to talk to the doctor.

While I waited, I could see the inside of my shoulder on the desktop. Looked fine to me.

Turns out I was right. Sort of. Fairly good news. No labral tear, no serious rotator cuff injury. Some arthritis, some bone cysts, and some swelling. Routine stuff. I didn't even need PT. I just had to do a bunch of exercises. And the doctor said I could play tennis! Right-handed! He said it might hurt a bit, and we could try a cortisone shot-- but I wasn't going to rupture anything. I would just be sore. If I really hurt it, I would know it.

This made me happy enough to get back to a project I've been putting on hold. I need a new tennis racket, an arm friendly one. If my right shoulder still hurts with the new racket, then I may still pursue playing left-handed. But I don't have to. I went to the gym today and did a bunch of shoulder exercises and I'm sore as hell. But I've eluded the looming specter another day.

I also think I need to make a doctor's appointment-- the appointment you make when you turn fifty-- and I think this is the appointment when the doctor will stick his finger up my ass.

Can't they just stick my ass in the MRI machine?

Soccer Injury

During the USA/Portugal match, all the kids watching the game were sitting on the floor of my living room, and my son Ian didn't jump up quickly enough when the US scored their second goal, and so he got kneed in the side of the face . . . so amidst the jubilation he was curled in a ball, crying, and had to be extricated from the throng of cheering boys . . . and in my usual empathetic fashion I blamed the injury on his slow reaction time to the goal-- not the insane boys that injured him-- and advised him "when you watch soccer you've got to really pay attention because if a goal gets scored people go crazy."

Hauling It Home

I will try to eventually write a wrap-up of our cross country trip, but we were so busy that I got behind, so I'll have to squeeze Mesa Verde, the Petrified Forest, Santa Fe, rafting down the Rio Grande, and Taos into one run-on sentence . . . I'm too tired to do that now, but I'm happy to report that despite some minor illness and an injury, we made it from New Mexico to Missouri-- 13 hours of driving-- and I did more than half of the driving, despite a sore shoulder . . . I should warn you that when you cross South Guadalupe St. in Santa Fe, at the Garfield Street intersection, you need to pay close attention, which I wasn't-- I was talking to my son about my used book purchase at Big Star Books and Music and I walked right into a low hanging traffic sign, the thin edge of metal caught me right in the shoulder and it's still kind of sore-- but aside from a few scrapes, that was the only injury on the trip, so no complaints; on the way to Springfield, Missouri, we had a great meal of brisket, fried bologna, hot links, and world famous banana cake at Leo's Barbecue in Oklahoma City . . . this place is very authentic, and on a weird rural road with seventeen churches on it, despite being near downtown; unfortunately, Ian didn't get to keep his meal, he got carsick several hours later-- the minor illness, again no complaints-- and he filled a plastic bag with vomit but didn't spill a drop in the car (well done, Ian!) . . . he ate some mozzarella cheese near the end of the ride, and puked this up into one of the planters in front of the Day's Inn . . . yuck . . . we're going to get him some Dramamine tomorrow morning . . . and, in case you were wondering, I'm out of clean shirts.

Ostrich Philosophy

My son Alex came home Tuesday with a nasty scrape on his arm, an injury he suffered in what he named "the arena"-- a free-form fighting melee that became an after school ritual for several days; I'm happy to say I witnessed the inception of this 4th-5th grade gladiatorial combat zone, and I'm also happy to say that I predicted its demise . . . a teacher finally broke it up, and while it looked like a lot of fun, and boys certainly need to burn off some energy and aggression when they leave school, I'm still glad to see it go -- there were a lot of head-on collisions and body slamming, and the ground wasn't particularly grassy-- there were trees and dirts and roots, and so Alex is probably lucky that he got away with such a minor injury . . . and this confirms one of my lessons about kids: it's always better when you don't watch what they're doing, because most of the stuff they do-- stand on furniture, play on the stairs, whip around sharp objects and bash each other with sticks-- looks incredibly dangerous, but most of the time they don't get hurt, and the only person who suffers is the adult watching all the violent nonsense.

Outer Banks Fishing Trip XX

Another successful OBFT -- this was number twenty . . . and I am twenty for twenty (as are Whitney and Rob) although I was a bit nervous about making it down there -- train tickets doubled in price and airline tickets are through the roof -- so I drove . . . which turned out to be a good move, because quite a few flights were cancelled, leading to some travel adventures for Johnny, Marls, and Zman and a record number of cars in the Martha Wood Driveway . . . some things I remember: 1) some scatological humor at Whitney's place Wednesday night 2) a new frisbee beach game named KanJam, which caused me a minor injury (bruised thumb) and Chris a major injury (deep cut on the bridge of his nose) 3) several marathon corn-hole streaks 4) a major corn-hole partner defection 5) Whitney sabotaged my blog 6) Rob's new anti-strategic poker move -- named "the betfold" -- you simultaneously bet and throw in your hand 6) good food and drink at The Old Nag's head Cafe . . . and when one member of the group (who will go unnamed) forgot to pay his bar tab, we found out what a small town Kill Devil Hills really is . . . and not to mess with the locals, who might know Bruce 7) Johnny played Cliffy in a fabulous one on one football game 8) the old guys beat the "young" guys two to one in a very short touch football game . . . and we employed the zone 9) a typical game of Pig . . . Whitney hit the trifecta -- three sets of snake-eyes, doubles 3x in a row, and landed on one hundred points exactly - and so got to reante five times in two games 10) Marls and Whitney brought back fifteen rubber sharks from Tortuga's 11) Bruce told another joke too tasteless for the internet . . . and probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting because I'm still tired from the trip: thanks again Whitney, and it was great to see everyone.

It's Fun to Eat Junk Food and Watch a Lot of TV

Sometimes it takes an injury to remember how wonderful it is to eat salty and sugary snacks in alternation, while getting completely sucked into a TV show . . . especially when every episode is available on Netflix . . . I have watched thirteen episodes of The Killing since last Thursday, but season one doesn't wrap everything up in a neat package, so I need a new injury so that I can watch season two equally as fast.

Trilemma of Dave

I read to encounter new stories, new ideas, and new words, and I found all of these in Paul Krugman's The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 . . . I read stories of economic disaster in Latin America, Japan, and Thailand; I read that the global crisis of 2008 might not have been completely caused by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act (which was put in place after the Great Depression and ensured compartmentalization between commercial banks and investment companies) and might have been more the result of a "run" on the completely unregulated "shadow banking system" . . . which wouldn't have been regulated by the Glass-Steagall act anyway; and I read the word "trilemma," which Krugman used to explain the problem with national monetary policy . . . you can either let your money "float" and fluctuate on the exchange rate, which fights recession but adds a great deal of uncertainty to your economy, or you could fix the value of the rate and attempt to guarantee that the currency would never be devalued, or you can maintain an adjustable peg . . . and he explains the defects in all of these and calls the problem a "three-cornered dilemma" . . . a "trilemma" and the only trilemma in my life right now is not particularly exciting . . . it's not like Heidi Klum, Karolina Kurkova, and my wife are all battling for my affections . . . but there certainly are three corners to my problem: I have a knee injury, but it's not a terribly bad injury-- my knee cap popped out of place and I sprained the inner ligaments and my bursa sac is a bit swollen, and so I can either: 1) rest it properly until it heals . . . which is what I should do, but is rather impossible since I have two active boys, a dog, and I am hyper-active 2) I could do light exercise . . . jog, walk, play with my kids, lift weights, bike, and swim . . . which alleviates my hyper-activity but is rather boring, or 3) I can tape myself and wrap myself and brace myself and keep playing basketball and soccer until my knee explodes and my plantar fasciitis returns.

Dave Deliberates . . . Perfectly

My jury duty is over-- I sat on a two-day personal injury civil case that concluded today-- we found a landlord negligent for the behavior of his agent-- a guy who lived rent-free in his four-unit house in exchange for being the de facto handyman and superintendent-- and this handyman/superintendent (who did not appear in court-- very mysterious) gravely injured the hand of another guy, who was helping him build some stairs-- the guy lost his pinky and most of the use of his dominant hand . . . and then we had to assign a monetary value to the injury-- to make this guy "whole" again-- pain, suffering, loss of work, etcetera-- but not medical expenses-- and he was a fairly old guy and that was a factor and we did a bunch of calculations (but we were not provided with ANY guidance about the monetary amount) and so. we averaged together all of our numbers-- which were in the same ballpark-- I suggested $400,000 and there were a few jurors above and a few below, so that became the number we presented to the court-- and after we went back in the courtroom and presented our verdict, I met my brother for lunch-- he does mediation of this sort in the courthouse, but usually for smaller claims-- but he has access to all the mediation files-- unless the judge seals them, they are a matter of public record-- and so he looked up this case and found that the county arbitrator determined the exact same amount as reasonable compensatory damages-- but the plaintiff wasn't happy with this number and so went to trial-- and was awarded the same dollar amount by a bunch of amateurs doing back-of-the-envelope calculations-- a fairly strange coincidence . . . unless my secret and untapped talent is awarding the perfect amount of compensatory damages!

Mea Culpa?

Martin Seligman, who wrote Learned Optimism, asserts that it is mentally healthier to sublimate rather than ruminate-- if you suffer a setback, blame an outside force instead of yourself . . . this is how you avoid depression; I may have taken this to the extreme on Sunday, when I stubbed my toe on the short flight of stairs leading from the study into the kitchen (stubbed it hard, hard enough that I crumpled into a ball) and immediately blamed my wife for the injury, claiming that it was her fault because she "talked to me while I was climbing the stairs" and -- in my throes of pain-- I told her she shouldn't engage me in conversation until I was in front of her and stationary or that it could result in injury . . . I recognize the absurdity of this logic now, but it did make my toe and my ego feel better during the incident-- instead of being a comically injured spaz, I was an indignantly wronged victim.

The Wild World of HP Sports

The rainy weather finally broke today, allowing us to play our match against Edison Academy-- a nerdy math magnet school with a lot of tennis players-- and things started chaotically and just kept getting messier; I was driving over with my son Ian when my older son Alex texted-- the one bus that Highland Park runs did not show up, and this is the bus that takes kids to the townhouse complex near the courts, so I turned around and picked up Alex and his buddy Boyang . . . so now I was driving first, second and third singles to the match, but Boyang didn't have his racket, so I dropped him off and headed to the courts-- because the other team was already there; the plan was that I would unload the equipment and then Alex would take the car and go back and pick-up Boyang; we arrived and Edison Academy was there in full force and we only had a couple of players present; I knew we were missing our second doubles team (Jewish Holiday) so we were already short players to begin with, but then I couldn't find Jakob or Ethan; soon enough, however, I was directed to where Ethan was splayed out on a bench-- he had crashed on his pennyboard (a little fast skateborad) and had some serious road rash on his shoulder, knee, and hand . . . Alex just got back with the van and Boyang, so I ran and got the First Aid kit and cleaned him up and patched him up as best as I could, but he was in no condition to play; Jakob did arrive, but he had to ride his bike through the park, which was totally flooded-- so he was biking through two feet of water-- and, a true Highland Park athletics story, we now had to replace Ethan with Theo, a novice at tennis and a freshman who had never played a real set of tennis in his life . . . and then I learned from the coach that this was just a scrimmage as they hadn't officially joined the GMC, which was a relief, so while we got beat in every position, it was competitive all around-- Ian was having a great match but had to bow out because of an ankle injury and Alex and Boyang squandered leads to excellent players, and first doubles took a set before losing and Theo and Isaac held their own; anyway, it's Friday and I'm now officially on Spring Break (even though we have four tennis matches in a row next week) and will get to spend some quality time with the dog while my kids and wife are at school.

Not So Humblebrag (Wait for It)

While I'm really proud of my son Alex-- he's in 9th grade and he's not so big (I think he's just starting to hit puberty) and he really scrapped his way up the tennis ladder this season (despite chipping his thumb playing goalie for his travel team) and-- because of injuries and school trips-- he got to play in a number of varsity matches; Highland Park is a tiny school but we have an exceptional tennis squad, so in the county we play in the highest division (Red) against the biggest and best schools and this prepared us for the state tournament, where we play schools our size-- and for the first time in eight years they won the entire state in their group (Group 1)  and while Alex traveled to those matches, he didn't play-- but this enabled the team to play in the Tournament of Champions against the winners of all the groups and because of an injury, Alex got to play second doubles-- and while the entire team got beaten soundly, they played well and Alex learned a great deal-- but I'm most proud of myself, because I trained both my kids-- despite the fact that I'm not a tennis instructor and I didn't even play high school tennis (although my brother played in college, which has helped) and over the weekend, I analyzed Alex's serve and fixed it, and he said he served really well today and the only time they won was when he was serving . . . so while I can't figure out if I'm more proud of Alex for his skill and tenacity or myself for my patience, accurate practice hitting, and ability to glean tennis information from YouTube, this is a good problem to have (I just wish I could give myself a lesson and smooth out my own two-handed backhand).

Road Trip Day Eight: The Badlands Start Treating Us Good

An epic day in the Badlands yesterday, but I will try to keep it terse:

1) I got up early to catch the sunrise over the Badlands, but so did the mosquitoes;

2) we tackled the Notch Trail at 7 AM, when it was cool and cloudy-- and after we ascended the rope and log ladder, edged our way along a cliff, and peered through the windy notch and into the White River Valley, we remarked at how much easier the hike was than the guidebook described it, and how lucky we were that it wasn't so hot . . . and then it started pouring rain, big drop rain-- the kind that hurts-- turning the ash and broken sandstone trail into a treacherous mudslick-- we tried to climb into a cave, but the climb turned out to be more dangerous than the actual trail, and then -- as fast as it came-- the downpour stopped and we made it down without injury (and later in the day we saw several ambulances at the head of this same trail and heard from a fireman at the rodeo that a guy fell from the rope ladder and broke his leg);

3) we found the best food in Interior (and maybe on the planet) at the Cedar Pass Lodge . . . and this could be hyperbole because we had been hiking all morning (and ate dinner at The Wagon Wheel the night before) but the Sunrise Fry Bread-- a piece of Indian fry bread covered with buffalo meat chili, refried beans, two fried eggs, and cheese-- is the best breakfast I have ever eaten in my entire life, and everyone else was very happy with their food as well;

4) we rode the Loop Road through the park, stopping several times to climb surrealistic rock formations-- the Badlands are a paradise for kids, a giant game of king of the hill, but not as fun for parents, who notice the cliffs and rockslides-- and we saw big horn sheep, prairie dogs, and bison;

5) Wall Drug was just as tacky as ever, and we learned that folks in South Dakota call seltzer "soda water" . . . we thought our waitress was mentally challenged and she thought the same of us, until we sorted the whole thing out;

6) my son Ian has been keeping a journal and when he read his description of the Ashfall Fossil Beds, I realized that he described what happened there better than me: "there was a giant volcano and it erupted and the lava didn't touch the animals but they suffocated from ash and the bad air from the volcanic eruption" and he also described the dynamic between my wife and me when we arrived at the Badlands Budget Host: "at the hotel there were fishing hooks in the bed and mommy got mad at dad because he chose this motel."

7) though it was ninety degrees, we went to the rodeo (and when I expressed my worry about the heat and the rodeo to the grizzled waitress at The Wagon Wheel, she agreed that it would be brutal but gave me some advice: "drink a lot of beer" but that didn't help-- and though we were very impressed with the bronco riding and the steer wrestling, we left after an hour and went back to The Badlands Budget Host to enjoy the above ground pool . . . even my wife took a swim).

Camping Is More Fun If You Stay In a Hotel With Air-Conditioning

There is a feeling of triumph for a father when he brings his children back from a camping trip, alive and uninjured (but, ironically, despite the fact that we braved campfires, sleeping together in a tent, Alex adjusting to his tooth-spacer . . . he ate lots of ice cream . . . repeated rides on the Looper at Knoebels, bug collecting on a giant mosquito ridden hill, a treacherous hike across a monstrously huge and sun baked spider infested boulder field, an escaped fugitive, and slippery paths along a waterfall, despite the fact that we survived all this and more without injury . . . once we got home and went to the pool, within fifteen minutes, Alex got stung on the stomach by a bee).

Miracles: I Generate Them

While zealous fanatics of Sentence of Dave know that I am no stranger to miracles, I realize that some of my more skeptical readers question the authenticity of these wondrous happenings, and might even doubt my hagiographic qualities . . . but this example will certainly sway them: last Wednesday night, while playing basketball, my leg popped out of the hip socket -- or that's what it felt like -- and I knew to stop playing, but it didn't seem like that bad of an injury, but the next morning it felt much worse, and by mid-day Thursday, much to the amusement of my colleagues, I was curled in a ball on the floor of the English office, unable to find a position to relieve the excruciating pain in my right hip and leg -- and so I had to do the unthinkable . . . cancel soccer practice AND miss pub night, and despite taking Advil and Aleve, I couldn't sleep and my hip kept getting worse and worse, so I took off work on Friday and went to the doctor -- who despite having a very calm bedside demeanor, still scared the crap out of me, since he kept mentioning X-rays and MRI's and physical therapy and possible surgery . . . but the first step was to get an X-ray, which was an epic trip in the rain, considering I needed the use of a cane to get in and out of the car, but luckily all that showed up on the x-ray was a bone spur and lots of wear and tear, so he thought it was probably just a bad "bone bruise," where bone hit bone on the spur, and then everything swelled up, and so I spent Friday in incredible pain, taking a prescription anti-inflammatory drug, and I was unable to sit up, or walk very far . . . and in order to get off the couch, I had to undergo ten minutes of weird gyrations (including a step when I had to crawl on the floor) and I was feeling pretty low -- like I was done playing sports forever, even with my kids, and probably wouldn't even be able to attend Ian's soccer game on Saturday, let alone coach it, but when I woke up Saturday morning, I was able to get out of bed without a problem, and though my hip was sore, it didn't hurt . . . and I now realize the acute difference between those two states, and so I was able to walk the dog, coach the game (we won! Ian scored!) and rejoin the ambulatory world . . . and now I have a new lease on life, an appreciation of the simple things, and I have sworn to take it easy until I am fully healed and not jeopardize my health and the well-being of my family and myself by vainly taking part in adult athletics, because I am long past my prime . . . unless . . . unless . . . this miraculous recovery is a sign from the powers above that I should continue to recklessly participate in sports aimed for people many years younger than me, and I am sure that my stupid brain will slowly rationalize the latter logic, and I will act just like Steve Martin's character Davis in Grand Canyon.

Dave's Body is Haunted by Shit From 2020

My shoulder hurts-- which hasn't been the case since 2019/2020 . . . I aggravated my shoulder trying to hit a topspin one-handed backhand in 2019 and when I finally got an MRI in early 2020, I learned that my right shoulder has some arthritis, some bone cysts, and some swelling . . . not the worst case scenario-- but these elements have gotten organized once again and are making a team effort to make my shoulder sore and swollen and so it's hard to make a right-handed lay-up or hit an overhead smash in tennis and pickleball-- and throwing a football a good distance is out of the question-- but I'm taking naproxen, like the doctor said, and it's starting to work-- and I'm also recovering from a calf strain-- and this is another injury resurfacing from 2020 . . . I hurt it playing indoor soccer and though I played indoor soccer this weekend, I could still feel it a bit, so I stopped after an hour . . . and I guess this is just how it's going to be-- the same injuries are going to resurface when I push my body too much and they will always be there, lingering in the background, and I'll also accumulate new injuries . . . and then I'll get some kind of illness or disease and croak (and hopefully, I will eloquently document it all for your reading displeasure).

Fuck Driving

My wife and I don't drive much-- we both work close to where we live; we bought a house in a walking town; and we hate being in the car . . . but the past few days have given us a taste of what many Americans do on a daily basis-- my wife drove out to Muhlenberg and back on Thursday evening, so Ian could see his friends and go to some Halloween parties with his girlfriend (apparently kids now wear a different costume for each party . . . I'll try to post some pics, but Alex and his girlfriend were Elvis and Priscilla and then characters from Ratatouille and Ian and Layla were a deer and a hunter, two superheroes, and then Shaggy and Scooby . . . absurd) and then on Friday, Cat and I drove out past Trenton to go to an Italian place for my brother's birthday-- it took an hour to get there-- and then we drove Ian back to school on Saturday (with Layla) and we all did some parent's weekend stuff-- saw some football-- going to a Muhlenberg football game is very low key-- and we watched some Sex Education style a capella singing and then we went to a really good restaurant (Union and Fitch) with Layla and Ian for dinner and then they went out and Cat and I crashed at the Holiday Inn, then I took Ian for an x-ray on his weird ankle injury-- no information, he needs an MRI-- and then we drove the hour-plus home . . . way too much fucking driving, I hate being in the car, it stresses me out, makes me sick--I have to drive and chew gum-- and when I get out my knees and hips hurt . . . but I don't even have to do my twelve-minute commute this week because I'm on virtual school because of the water main break in my high school, so I won't have to drive anywhere this week, which will be wonderful.

Seven Reasons a Snow Day is Better Than a Hurricane Day

1) You can't sled on wet leaves;
2) you can't make a rain-man (unless you're Dustin Hoffman);
3) kids are tempted to swing Tarzan-style on downed power lines;
4) you have to walk the dog;
5) drinking hot cocoa is more fun than trying to consume all the seafood in the freezer before it defrosts;
6) it's embarrassing when a giant limb from your tree falls on your neighbor's house;
7) no power means no TV which means your children will eventually suffer a head injury (seriously . . . and now not only does Ian have a giant lump on his head -- Alex slammed a door into it -- but he also scraped all the skin off his Achilles tendon when he stepped into a hole that was obscured by leaves and contained a very sharp drain culvert . . . school needs to reopen!)

Can Duct Tape Really Fix Anything?

Yesterday afternoon, a bit after six PM, Ian and Catherine heard a loud bang on our front lawn-- they were in the kitchen-- and so they ran outside and saw the tail end of a wild car chase . . . a white car drove over the No Parking sign in front of our neighbor's house (causing the loud bang) and then raced across our lawn, clipping one of our trees; this caused the car's bumper and side mirror to come off (and he also knocked a huge chunk of bark off my tree . . .  more on that later) and then the car turned back onto the road and continued south on Valentine, pursued by five police cars (marked and unmarked) and though I was in the room closest to the incident, I missed the entire thing (I was in my music studio, wearing headphones, editing a podcast) and finally, from what we heard, the car plowed into a police road block on Benner, injuring the officer that was in the car . . . I can't find an article yet, but I will link to one when I do; Cat was freaked out because they were out on the front lawn five minutes before, unloading from a day at the pool, and I was freaked out because my beautiful tree, that I planted when Ian was born, suffered a severe injury, but the web tells me that if you duct-tape the bark back to the tree, the tree has a much better chance of surviving, so though it looks weird, I did it and I hope it works.

Victory?

My adult soccer team improved its record to 3-0 the other night, and once again we beat a team that was younger, more fit, and more skilled than us (they were a group of Irish and British ladies and lads, and the ladies were as good as the lads/ one of them nearly nailed me with a shot in the nads) but two minutes into the game I stepped in a hole and hyper-extended my already bad knee (on a super-excellent move that froze the opposition, you should have seen it, it was graceful and explosive, until I stepped in the hole and my knee buckled and I angrily kicked the ball out of bounds and hopped off the field, muttering things about turning forty) but after some stretching I was able to return and play (though rather lamely) but my knee injury paled in comparison to what happened at the end of the first half on a fairly innocuous play in the box . . . the opposing keeper came out for a through ball and his own defender pushed our player into him and he somehow knocked his head, either on our players knee or the ground, and the play concussed him and/or hurt his neck and he could barely speak and the EMT's had to be sent for and they back-boarded him and taped his head to the neck brace and the whole nine yards and then-- after that long ugly, awkward, delay-- we continued the game but they were a man down and things had soured as far as having some fun on a Wednesday and the injured player's dad went into goal (I think his sister rode in the ambulance to the hospital with him) but then he stomped out of goal when one of our players came close to him (but did not touch him) on a play in the box and part of me was wondering: what the hell am I doing out here when I could be at home having a beer and participating in some safe activity like watching TV or playing my guitar or shingling my roof.

Barely a Script, But a Bear of a Movie

I am a lucky man-- when things get rough in my life, I can always count on my family . . . but sometimes I wonder if my family is an extension of my own consciousness and perspective on the world . . . sometimes I wonder if my family sees the world the same way I see it; I was looking for a movie to show to my Creative Writing classes, a film that told a story with very little dialogue and an abundance of imagery, and my colleagues and the internet led me down the usual paths -- Wall - E, 2001, Castaway, etc.-- but I wanted to show something that the kids had never seen before, and I stumbled upon a French film called The Bear . . . a movie about a young bear who has to survive in the wild after his mother has been killed by an avalanche . . . and while my wife and children loved this movie . . . despite the blood, the mating scene, and the psychedelia (the baby bear ingests hallucinogenic mushrooms and "trips" and-- besides this-- he also has a number of weird and expressionistic dreams) and despite the lack of dialogue (my son Alex aptly summed up the script: "it could fit on half a page of paper") we had a fantastic time watching this thing, we speculated on how they filmed it, we enjoyed the aesthetic beauty of the bears, and we were appropriately moved by the plot . . . and so I thought I knew what to expect when I showed it in class, but there was a much wider variety of reactions from my high school students than I anticipated: some loved it, some were disturbed by the drama and the realism, some couldn't understand the fact that it was a movie -- that the bears were acting and that no one was shot or hurt or nearly drowned . . . that every scene was set up and that the emotional impact of the bears' body language was an artistic conceit, probably created more in the mind of the audience than by the emotional state of the bears . . . and while I highly recommend this movie, both for adults and children, I must warn you that you will sound like a lunatic when you describe it, because you will delve into the details of how well these bears can act-- how they can feign an injury and pretend to catch a frog and show sadness and regret-- and so no one will listen to you, nor will they understand what an entertaining flick this is . . . but trust me and check it out (also, it's fun to say the title as if you were a Bill Swerski Superfan . . . What are you watching? Da Bear).