First World Problems

Ian woke me up at three in the morning because one of his Spiderman socks slipped off while he was sleeping and his foot was cold.

Bored? Broke? I Have a Solution . . .

The unemployment numbers created by this recession are scary, but I feel better when I remind myself that as long as people keep having unprotected sex, my fellow teachers and I will always have work (and when you're out of a job, what else is as cheap and fun as unprotected sex?)

Magical Parenting Moment . . . Apocalyptic Duet Edition

One of those magic moments with my son that makes all the fecal accidents, loss of sleep, stubbed toes on stray toys, time, money, and struggles with car seats worth it: I was playing that old song "End of the World" (why does the sun go on shining . . . why does the sea rush to shore . . . don't they know, it's the end of the world because you don't love me any more-- bonus points if you can name who originally sang it) and the song is slow enough and the lyrics are simple enough that Alex started singing along while he was playing with his Legos and after two repetitions he had the lyrics memorized (remember when your brain actually worked?) and so he came over next to me (I was reading the lyrics and chords on the computer in the kitchen) and started singing along, so I turned on the iMac's microphone on the and captured an impromptu duet with him . . . but I hope he doesn't start singing the song at school because it is really, really a bleak tune.

Paradoxical Economic Rambling

I should not be the one to point this out, but no one else has: there is an ironic paradox inherent in this economic meltdown because the very thing our government has encouraged and subsidized-- home ownership (how is it subsidized? tax write-offs for property taxes and mortgage payments, tax breaks for capital gains on primary real estate . . . how is it encouraged? the Bush and Clinton administrations pushed banks to offer loans to higher risk applicants and allowed them to offer complex mortgage products and then allowed mortgages to be bundled into tranched funds so everyone could get in on the mortgage funds) has now collapsed, but this was the thing that the was supposed to be the safest way to achieve the American Dream, buy a house and pay for it, and so now that it has collapsed and the foreclosure rate is high and the demand for housing is low because the market is flooded because so many people need to unload mortgages they can't afford because of high unemployment which was caused by the subprime loans to begin with, and we won't pull out of the recession quickly because we are a nation of homeowners, and in comparative studies, nations with lower home ownership weather recessions better because their workforce is more dynamic and liquid, and not locked into areas without work because they can't sell their houses, but since so many of us are home owners who can't afford our homes but can't move to find work because we can't sell our homes, the crisis is feeding itself but I'm not sure why an English teacher is pointing this out, although maybe it is because I can think about the crisis in a more detached manner because my job is relatively safe.

Absolutely

On the way into Highland Park, we drive past the VFW and there are two old Howitzer cannons in front of the building and we pass these things often enough that my four-year-old son Ian took notice of them, but I had no idea what he was imagining until the other day, when he asked me, "Daddy, are those guns there to protect the planet?"

Dave Finally Comprehends His Own Blog Title

Although I'm an English teacher, I'm pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to puns and symbolism (it took me years to figure out that the Geico lizard was a gecko . . . get it? Geico . . . gecko . . . they sound similar) and so I just realized the ironic pun in the title of my blog: I have effectively sentenced myself to write exactly one sentence per day for the rest of my life.

Right Back To It

I knew our two-day respite from the kids was officially over once we started loading them into the car-- I had to turn off the Howard Stern Show before the boys heard something they might repeat, and, once again, found myself struggling with my fucking nemesis . . . Ian's car seat, the belt never threads through cleanly and it constantly has to be pulled back in to release the mechanism that allows it to stretch long enough to reach the seat belt socket, which is difficult to reach because you're leaning over a child and the car seat, so even though I turned the Howard Stern off, the kids still heard things they shouldn't have-- but instead of coming from the satellite radio, they came from my mouth (and then to really cement our return to reality, Ian peed in his bed).

Trip to Tuckerton

Things we saw on our weekend trip to Tuckerton (without the kids): three bald eagles, the Saturday bluegrass jam at Albert Hall (highly recommended-- for five dollars you get to watch hours of bluegrass music, mainly played by really old Piney dudes who have been gathering for decades . . . lots of banjo and fiddle and mandolin and songs about old times and adultery-- you'd never know you were in New Jersey) Batsto Village-- a restored village in the middle of the Pine Barrens that once produced bog iron and glass-- Allen's Clam bar which has the best clams casino I've ever had, the Pine Barrens themselves, which are huge, the largest tract of forest on the East Coast from Boston to Richmond, again, you'd never know you were in New Jersey; things we didn't see: a Pine Barrens tree frog (too cold) and the Jersey Devil (too fictional).

It Tastes Better If It's Secret

So if you are anything like me (clueless) then you probably didn't know this, but I occasionally learn things from my students, and so I will pass on my new, hip, knowledge: Jamba Juice has a "secret menu" containing items with salacious, unhealthy names such as "Dirty Orgasm" and "Thank You Jesus" and "Fruity Pebbles" and "Penis Shooter" and "Pineapple Anus" (actually I made the last one up, but the rest are real) and while the employees have the recipes for all of these, they will not mention them or answer any questions about them-- but they will make them for you if you ask . . . I'm not sure if you have to whisper and I'll probably never be brave enough to order one of these, but it's still a great marketing campaign .

It's Hard to Pee Standing Up

This morning I observed how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree: my son Alex came out of our bathroom and said proudly, "I got all the pee in the toilet" but then he couldn't leave his story at that, and so he elaborated . . . "well, actually, I was getting some on the side so then I pulled it over a little so it was hitting the water but then it was going too low, so I had to move it up a little higher, and THEN I got it all in," and, just when I thought the tale was complete, he said, "and guess what?"-- which has become his signature phrase-- "I didn't flush!"

Dave = Greatest American (Modern) Hero

My wife called me "her hero" because I figured out that our wireless featureless Apple Magic Mouse (which looks like a space alien's slipper) can be configured to "right click" even though there's no "right click" button-- it just knows when you click on it over to the right (just as it knows to move the cursor when you twitch your finger, it's pretty amazing) but even though the mouse is quite cool, the deflation that feats of heroism have suffered in these modern times is pretty sad . . . imagine her reaction if I slew a fire-breathing dragon that was trying to incinerate our new kitchen (I'm thinking she would still call me "her hero" but there would also be sexual favors and back rubs awarded for the deed).

12/5/2009

For the past six years I have saved every piece of photo-copied paper possible in my classroom; the students give me back every article, poem, story, and question sheet that they haven't destroyed and then I file them so I can use them the next year, and I use a LOT of outside sources (because I teach several electives that really don't have a text plus I bring in anything new that I've read) so I've got several file drawers full of stuff that I recycle year to year, and I have done this without praise or thanks, and I have saved the high school money on paper and ink and saved the taxpayers of East Brunswick money and I do this without being asked and without telling anyone (except my readers) because I am the Lorax and I speak for the trees.

Hey Now . . . The Dream Is Over

During my Sunday morning soccer game, tempers ran a little high and two players started bickering over a foul, but a cooler head prevailed: a local youth coach told the two men who were arguing, who were both pushing forty, "Hey guys, the dream is over," and since then, these words have proved inspirational to me: whenever I get frustrated because Greasetruck isn't producing any music, or my kids are acting extra-annoying, or I've taught a lousy lesson, or I've written a cruddy sentence, or I've gone for a particularly slow run, or I'm angry because I haven't invented anything remotely cool or useful . . . I just remember, "the dream is over," and that I'm not going to be rich and famous or a rock star or a four minute miler or father brilliant prodigal geniuses or invent anything like Stretch Armstrong or illustrate my own long running syndicated cartoon strip, because those dreams are over BUT I do own a house (sort of, or I own a mortgage!) and I have fathered two kids (and their dreams-- which seem to be centered around professional wrestling and RC car racing-- are still alive) and I have held a job and paid taxes for many years, so I have helped innumerable poor and unemployed people, contributed to the maintenance of National and State Parks, and even helped build loads of weapons for military misadventures in the Middle East . . . which I never, in my wildest imagination, dreamed of doing at all.

12/3/2009

One of my students said her Jewish grandmother's advice about boys was this: "Goyim are for practice," and though Goyim is pejorative, it still sounds like fun to be practiced upon in this manner.

12/2/2009

Almost lost my five year old son Alex in a Darwin Award-esque accident: he said, "Look Dad!" and with a lollipop in his mouth, tried to stand on two soccer balls, one foot on each ball, and did a face plant, nearly impaling himself with the pop . . . and so, like any rational parent, I have banned all lollipops from my house until the children are old enough to drive to the store and by them on their own.

12/1/2009

Apparently people think I am causing my wife hypothermia because I keep our heat on 65 degrees; yesterday was her birthday and TWO people gave her a "Snuggie," which is pretty much a blanket with sleeves (but luckily one is leopard skin, so now she has one for upstairs . . . we don't even turn the heat on in the bedroom, it's on a different zone . . . and one for downstairs.)

Ian And Frank Sinatra Will Survive Manchuria

My four year old son Ian is very stubborn, and although this is trying, it will come in handy if anyone ever tries to brainwash him; last weekend, while we were waiting for our Mexican food at Aby's in Matawan (I mention this only because I created such a good Mexican joke about the locale: what's a Matawan? Nothing . . . but somebody stole my taco) and I played some word games with the boys to kill time-- I made them say "post" and "boast" and "host" and then I asked, "What do you put in a toaster?" . . . Alex fell for it and said, "toast" but Ian calmly said, "bread," and then I pointed to several white objects and asked them to name the color and they said "white" several times and then I asked, "What do cows drink?" and Alex fell for this one too and said, "milk" but again Ian refused to be tricked by my silliness and he looked at me and staidly said, "water."

Market Panic! Buy! Buy! Buy! Sell! Sell! Sell!

Michael Lewis's new book Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity is fun to read from the sidelines (especially if all your money is in your new kitchen addition, so while there may be some abstract money lost in the housing market, you don't feel it because you're eating at a big table surrounded by windows) but the lesson is that though hind-sight is 20/20, no one really understood exactly why Black Monday or the Foreign Credit Crunch or the Dot.com Bust or The SubPrime Mortgage Crisis happened in real time (except maybe John Paulson) and even if you did understand it, and you wanted to hedge your bets and weather the storm, other people in the herd that mirrored your position could cause a market run anyway-- and if you don't feel like reading the book, which is edited by Michael Lewis and contains articles written by a wide variety of analysts (including himself and Dave Barry) then you could probably reach the same understanding by watching the episode of Thirty Rock where Tracy Jordan, who is being interviewed by Larry King, causes a financial crisis all by his lonesome self.

11/28/2009

Nothing makes me happier than the canned pumpkin shortage-- I hope this is the first of many retaliatory measures Mother Nature levies against our materialistic culture, and I commend her for her timing, as it is especially effective when these apocalyptic omens occur around the crassly consumptive holiday season . . . I would suggest to her that she also bring a cankerous blight that decimates mistletoe and nog.

Klosterman and I Agree About Madmen

It took me a day and a half to ingest Chuck Klosterman's new book Eating the Dinosaur, and though there were some new ideas for me to devour-- on Kurt Kobain vs. David Koresh and ABBA and Ralph Sampson and Garth Brooks and laugh tracks and the inability of Ralph Nader to lie and why this is a problem in politics and the paradoxical identity of football (which appears to be the most conservative sport-- think Brett Favre and Vince Lombardi-- but is actually the most dynamic and liberal in nature . . . as it has evolved from the forward pass to radios in quarterbacks helmets, from rugby-esque to the read option and the spread offense, etc.) but the scary and entrancing and ultimately annoying bulk of the book is about things that I already love, such as the time travel movie Primer and Werner Herzog and Erroll Morris and the Unabomber Manifesto and Stephen King and Arrested Development and David Foster Wallace and Weezer and Madmen and this is ultimately annoying because he feels the same way as me about these things (and many more) but his ideas about them are more clever than mine and they are better articulated, because he's a professional pop-culture critic, so while on the one hand I am fascinated by what he is saying, on the other, I'm annoyed that I didn't think of it myself-- it's about Weezer, for Christ's sake, not the human genome!-- and for me this was most acute in his essay entitled "It Will Shock You How Much It Never Happened" where he dissects a press release from Pepsi and then makes some comparisons to Don Draper and Madmen and he transcribes and analyzes Don's monologue about the Kodak carousel and nostalgia-- and this is my favorite moment in TV history . . . it's the end of season one of the show, and no one else appreciated it at my workplace, but at least Klosterman did-- but then it made me wonder about this whole other idea, which is: is Klosterman just predicting what the faux cool nerdy hipster types who also like athletics like to read and watch and listen to, and are we that easy to predict and thus he writes about those things because he knows this is what will sell?-- it crossed my mind for an instant, but if that's so then the joke is on him, because he has embraced these things so fully and thought about them so deeply that whether he's joking or not, he is sincere.