I covered for the special education teacher in an environmental science class today and when I walked in I assumed the skinny, masked child behind the desk was a student-- but he turned out to be the teacher, a rather diffident brand-new hire who looked no older than my younger son . . . and then one of my other students said, "I was telling my mom how you needed to use a phone cord as a belt because your pants were falling down and my mom's friend said that you taught her-- her name is Julia and her daughter is a freshman"-- so that's what's coming down the pike, children of the kids I taught in my early years . . . yikes.
Beers, Bars, and Stumps
This weekend was much mellower than last weekend, but Cat and I did manage to go out after the senior night game on Friday-- and though we were very tired, the scene at the bar at Mr. Pi's sushi place woke us up-- first we were chatted up by a very energetic lesbian couple-- Stacey and Nerissa-- and we found out that they were older than they looked (50 and 46 no kids will do that . . . and for Nerissa, black doesn't crack) and Nerissa played basketball at St. Peters back in the day and knew folks that my brother played with at North Brunswick-- Wayne Cruz and Daryl Banks and such-- and then it was more small world game, Nerissa runs the after school program at the school where my wife works, so they will run into each other again-- and there was also a book club happening and there were some younger soccer moms that we knew, and the Deatz family wandered in-- they were eating dinner on the restaurant side, and then Sleepy Dan ambled in to complete the bar scene . . . and the bartender was a trip-- she's planning all sorts of jazz and karoake and footabll specials-- and we talked to one of the chefs, a Japanese guy who was very hungover for the previous night's sake tasting; Saturday I actually went grocery shopping and succeeded in getting everything on the list and then we went to Flounder Brewing and the Bellemara distillery next door-- really the best beer and drinks around (but a little pricey) and Sunday morning Cat and I played pickleball and then I watched the Giants while she worked on curriculum for some program (and Ian worked, yardwork and he gave a tennis lesson) and we got sandwiches from Sapore Deli in Middlesex after pickleball-- this place is HIGHLY recommended-- I got a broccoli rabe, hot pepper and chicken cutlet sandwich, ridiculous amount of food for 13 bucks-- it's two meals-- and then I successfully killed and bagged a stump from a dead tree (see the trophy photo above).
Beginning of the End, Sort Of
Last night was "senior night" for the HP Boys Soccer Team-- Catherine, my mother and I went out on the field with Ian-- who gave my mother a bouquet of flowers-- while my dad looked on from the fence on his scooter (it would have been difficult for him to navigate the turf on that thing) and then Highland Park cruised to a 5-0 victory over Timothy Christian in the first round of the county tournament; little Michael Volpert was the hero, scoring all five goals; Ian gave him a nice header assist for the first goal and Ian started at left-back instead of wing so that all the seniors could start the game-- it was fun watching him play there (the same position Alex played last year) and while there are still a few regular season games left, another county game to play, and the state tournament, this is the beginning of the end of watching high school soccer with a kid on the field (although the stands were packed last night, with plenty of HP fans whose kids have graduated, so I'll probably be watching games in the future, but it won't be the same of course).
Gender Stuff
We read Jia Tolentino's "Athleisure, barre, and kale: The Tyranny of the Ideal Woman" in College Writing class-- and the descriptions of barre class, while mildly erotic, are also depicted as training that helps "you adapt to arbitrary, prolonged agony," similar to the hyper-accelerated modernly optimized feminine lifestyle-- which led to a class discussion about why most women-- even if they played sports in school-- don't participate in pick-up basketball and soccer and other joyful sporting activities and instead subject themselves to yoga-pilates on a reformer (as my friend Cunningham does) and perhaps it is because-- as evidenced in the contrast between Tolentino and our other text, "The Naked Citadel," that men haze each other while women haze themselves.
There Are Two Sides to Every Conflict About a Rubber Doorstopper
Earlier in the week, my friend and colleague Terry was sitting morosely in the English Office (as he is wont to do, we don't call him Eeyore for nothing) and he said to me:
"Liz just called me a dick, in front of our homeroom!"
I asked him why this happened and he said:
"We've got this stupid rubber doorstopper and I couldn't get it to work because you have to fold it over or something and after she showed me how to do it, I said 'I still don't like it,' just joking around and she blew up at me!"
I said that was odd and maybe she was upset about something else-- she was teaching an extra class and had a lot of different preps and maybe she was just in a bad mood-- and then for the sake of Denise, who was also in the office and hates all men, I said:
"You know, not everyone is as calm and rational as us in these kind of situations"
and then I went on my merry way
the next day, Liz said to me, "I don't want you taking Terry's side before you hear the entire story" and so I gave her a recap of what Terry said happened and then-- because she has a dramatic bent-- Liz acted out what happened-- or what she thinks happened-- and it was a bit more compelling than Terry's story . . . apparently Terry is the extra teacher in the homeroom and he doesn't contribute much to running the show-- and Liz claims he was hunched over the doorstopper, fooling with it and muttering and complaining for like five minutes-- and she showed him how it worked but he continued to complain so she told him to "fuck off" . . . and she did admit she got pretty pissed-- which can certainly happen to Liz, who generally exudes school spirit and positivity, but when she's confronted with enough masculine fatalism she can lose it-- longtime fans of this sentence may remember when Liz kicked me out of the department because I did not want to "dress like a holiday" . . . and now, coincidentally, I share homeroom with Haim, the guy who prevented me from redeeming myself in that debacle . . . anyway, something happened between Terry and Liz in homeroom and the catalyst was a rubber doorstopper . . . the rest is shrouded in a profane mystery.
The Orchard . . . You Know, Behind the Tennis Courts
Today the sophomores and juniors had to take the PSAT (interminable and the script that admin made for us was riddled with typos and errors-- it was actually difficult to read-- you had to correct spelling, verb tense, and actual wrong wordage on the fly) so we had a half day, and to escape traffic quickly I brought my bike-- right when the test ended, I ran out of the building and jumped onto it and rode over to the used book sale at the mall and bought some books . . . when I returned I saw one of my friends from the History Department walking to his car and stopped my bike and entered into a very strange conversation:
"Hey what's going on?"
"I just rode over to the used book sale at the mall, got some good cheap books . . . now I'm headed over to the orchard to bike the trails"
"The orchard? I don't live around here . . ."
"The orchard . . . behind the tennis courts? where the track team runs?"
"Cranbury Road is behind the tennis courts"
"Not exactly . . . you go over a bridge, there's a large piece of land, that used to be an orchard-- with trails-- it's high school property"
"I've never been back there"
"Behind the tennis courts? There's a bridge over a little stream?"
"I don't know man"
"How long have you worked here! Twenty years?"
"Twenty years"
"Well . . . there's an orchard-- I used to walk across it to the old Blockbuster if I needed a movie for class"
"Alright, sounds cool, maybe I'll eat my lunch back there"
"Watch out for ticks"
and then I went biking in the orchard, a place I often run, walk, and bike . . . wondering how he made it twenty years without hearing about the orchard, a large chunk of multi-use land on our high school campus . . . weird . . . I wonder what stuff I don't know about our high school.
Gross Stuff Part II
In the comments yesterday, Zman wondered if cleaning out the wood under my deck would eliminate cave crickets-- and my answer is yes, I think it will help-- they like to live under rotting wood; this afternoon I also cleaned out the bike shed, and found dozens of cave crickets in there, under a piece of spare plywood-- so I took the doors off the bike shed, cleared out the spare pieces of wood, smashed a bunch of crickets with a shovel, sprayed some insecticidal soap, and put down some bug killing powder-- both in the shed and under the deck-- so we'll see how that works, but I'm still annoyed by some out of reach lantern flies in my maple tree-- maybe I'll try to get to them today, I think I can hit them from the deck with either long distance wasp spray or some Neem oil from our pump sprayer . . . I'm kind of ready for the first frost, which should decimate all these pests.
Gross Stuff, Indigenous, Exotic, and Otherwise
I cleaned out all the wood under our deck today-- there were pieces of old fencing and rotting chunks of timber from past projects and all kinds of other crap that was under there before we put lattice up-- including a deflated basketball full of water and one hard seltzer can that must have been tossed in there by one of the kid-- and this stuff was a haven for cave crickets so hopefully this will cut the population down; I also killed bunches of lantern flies on our maple trees-- gross-- and then we watched The Dark Crystal:Age of Resistance, which is an awesome show and highly recommended, but also quite gory and gross.
Too Many Things
I usually don't do too many events in a short span of time because I start to lose my mind, but this weekend was an exception:
--Thursday night I chaperoned the East Brunswick Homecoming Dance . . . 1200 kids! fascinating anthropological experience to see so many children dressed up, many dancing, others trying simply to walk without falling in high heels;
--Friday I went to a Highland Park soccer game (until half-time) and then Dom's tailgate and then a Rutgers football game;
--Saturday I went to the gym, then bought a tree, then attended the Highland Park soccer game, then planted the tree, then biked over to the Boyd Park Food Truck Festival (and had a jerk chicken sandwich) then attended a party at Sleepy Dan's house;
--Sunday I played pick-up soccer, then watched the Giants beat Green Bay, then went over to the Rutgers women's soccer game, picked up Alex at his dorm, and then went to my parents for dinner . . . so six sporting events and five social events . . . and now I have to work all week?
Sports Potpourri
Catherine and I inhaled a lot of sports in the past two days-- with a mixed bag of results-- yesterday we stopped at the HP soccer game, just in time, to see Ian score a wild back-heel flick volley goal off a long shot . . . and this was an easy 6-0 win so we left at half-time to go to the Rutgers/Nebraska game-- we parked at the edge of town and decided to walk over (we had subs and drinks and we were meeting our friend Dom at the Greek Church lot to tailgate) but someone told us the entrance to the park was flooded, so we hightailed it through the train trestle tunnel (which has no walking path) and then walked on the muddy rutted path parallel to River Road-- and Catherine wiped out in the mud and banged up her knee (before even consuming any alcohol!) and then we realized that the walk along River Road to the church lot was not only miserable and muddy but also really long (3 miles?) and we were walking next to all the game day traffic-- but we made it to the tailgate, cleaned up Catherine's knee, had some food and drinks (Cat made our drinks in ziplock bags, so we could dispose of everything once we were done drinking!) and then walked back to the stadium and met my buddy Haim and his wife (who gave us the tickets) and watched an absolutely awful football game-- a million penalties and TV timeouts, just slow as fuck-- but Rutgers was in it so we stayed until the end, only to see them throw an interception on their last drive, down by one point-- blech-- and then because we stayed so late, the traffic was insane, so we walked back to the car . . . after a nearly four hour game (and I was only wearing a t-shirt because it was so hot walking over, but then it got really cold-- I've been to two Rutgers games this season and that might be it for me, football is fun to watch on TV, when you can do other stuff, but it's pretty drawn out in person (although it was fun to talk to all the Nebraska folk at the game . . . I only know one thing about Nebraska-- that the Ashfall Fossil Beds are one of the greatest paleontological sites in the world, just astounding-- so I brought them up and the guy sitting next to us said he lived an hour south of them, so I had something to chat about-- then this morning I went over to see HP play Timothy Christian and this was a wild and exciting game, which HP finally won 4-3 . . . and Ian scored a great goal, he received a through ball, took a couple dribbles, and then finished nice and early-- before the defense converged on him, and shot a rocket past the big keeper from the eighteen-- he should have scored a couple other but the keeper made a great fingertip save on one headed to the upper corner and he was about to finish a follow and got clobbered (no foul) so Ian is having quite a season-- he scored the game winner the other day against Wardlaw-Hartridge-- and most importantly, he's playing a lot of minutes and his speed and defensive hustle look really good, and-- knock on wood, because he's only 130 pounds-- he hasn't gotten hurt.
Huberman: Nice Guy, Smart Guy, But He Ruins Everything!
Andrew Huberman has a doctorate in neuroscience and is a professor at Stanford, and his podcast, Huberman Lab, is comprehensive, exhaustively researched, intelligent, and enlightening . . . but the last two episodes I listened to have been pretty brutal-- in a very nice, non-judgmental way;
1) the main takeaway in the two hour long episode "What Alcohol Does To Your Body, Brain & Health" is that more than FIVE servings of alcohol a week is really bad for your brain, mood, sleep, liver, longevity and telomeres . . . there's so much more in there but that's what I remember-- and for a guy who enjoys beer, it's a tough constraint to follow;
2) the big takeaways from "The Effects of Cannabis (Marijuana) on the Brain & Body" are:
-- people under the age of twenty-five should NOT use cannabis because of well documented decrease and thinning in gray matter-- that's the good stuff stuff in your brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex -- and an increase in future incidence of schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, psychosis, depression, and anxiety;
--pregnant women should never use cannabis;
--while there are some pros for people over 25 who use cannabis-- reduced anxiety, pain relief, increased focus and creativity-- if you use cannabis more than twice a week, then you lose these benefits, build a tolerance, reverse the anxiety reduction, screw up some receptors in your brain, and increase likelihood of mental illness down the line;
--smoking cannabis, or any drug, has a whole host of other negative health benefits that aren't even associated with the drug . . . and the same goes for vaping;
so while cannabis might be "better" than drinking alcohol, Huberman doesn't think this makes a particular good case for chronic use of the drug-- because that comes with its own costs.
Playing the Tomorrow Game
I recently finished Sudhir Venkatesh's new book The Tomorrow Game: Rival Teenagers, Their Race for a Gun, and a Community United to Save Them-- and, like his other stuff, this is required reading; you may know Venkatesh from the first Freakonomics book-- he details the crack cocaine economy in South Chicago from a close and personal perspective (and he turns this sociological adventure into an entire book . . . Gang Leader for a Day) and his new book is equal to the detailed, anecdotal, and economic reporting of his first-- but this is a tighter story and perhaps more relatable to anyone who has or works with teenage children-- it's a typical high school story of bullying, honor, friendship, and money-- but with the added shadow that is always looming South Chicago: gangs, drugs, and guns . . . and all the revelations about these elements of the inner city will surprise you; my latest episode of We Defy Augury is devoted to thoughts about this book . . . and Cobra Kai . . . check it out (and give it a good rating an Apple music if you have time, that makes a big difference . . . thanks!)
Smoking Puppets?
My family has enjoyed the first few episodes of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance-- the sets are intricate and awe-inspiring, the plot is epic, and while the characters are a little difficult to differentiate, the show is pretty intense-- considering it is enacted by puppets-- but I was surprised the the Netflix warning at the start: "fear, gore, smoking"-- I could see the fear and the gore, although it's fairly cartoony fear and gore, but it's certainly no Madmen.
I'm a Subconscious IT Guy
Apparently, when I bang on my Lenovo ThinkPad to make the screen return from random blackout to whatever I was previously working on, I am doing "percussive maintenance"-- which is an actual tech strategy to solve certain malfunctions (but don't try it on toddlers . . . but perhaps try it on robot toddlers).
Who's Who? Who Knows?
One of these people is yours truly and the other is my brother-- but I'll leave it to you to decide who is who.
Like the Fog, Dementia Rolls In
Last night, we were at a potluck dinner at our neighbor's house and I asked my wife the location of my cousin Tommy's 60th birthday party-- an event we were attending today-- and she said, "Catherine Lombardi" and I was like, "OH MY GOD! That's awesome!" because Catherine Lombardi is in New Brunswick, two minutes from our house (and I thought we would be driving all the way out to South Brunswick) and my wife said, "You knew that-- I told you weeks ago" and I said, "I most definitely didn't know that! I would have reacted the same way-- I would have been so excited that we didn't have to drive!" and she said: "That's exactly how you reacted the last time I told you."
Yelling Rarely Fixes Electrical Issues
After yelling at the universe for the thousandth time that the living room lamp that I use for reading was unplugged-- because my son uses the outlet to charge his phone/computer and only one of the outlets works, I actually solved the problem-- for 11 dollars!-- and ordered a power strip that also has three USB ports.
High School Sports: Treasure That Shit
Highland Park soccer took a beating today against Middlesex-- they're always brutal on their grass field-- and though Ian played great, he wasn't capable of the heroics of Wednesday's game . . . but I was impressed that his team played hard until the end, even though they were down 5-0-- and I was also impressed that Ian didn't get caught giving the finger to some very obnoxious high school aged Middlesex fans . . . and I will remind Ian that win or lose, there's nothing like playing high school sports: they're just serious enough to be super-competitive, there are ageless and endless rivalries (like HP and Middlesex) and you get to switch to a different sport when the season ends . . . I played soccer in high school and it was wild and physical and competitive, but I also played golf in the spring-- with my best friends-- and we loved it . . . as the photo above indicates (I'm the one three from the left, wearing a Members Only jacket, sporting a mullet).
Ian Plays Soccer Like a Hurricane
My son Ian, who is a senior in high school, has had a rough couple years of high school soccer-- he was an excellent player when he was young, but then he didn't grow . . . and then he grew too fast-- so he's endured a broken elbow, stretched and tender Achilles tendons, and an elbow to the orbital that gave him a concussion-- he didn't really play any soccer all summer , he just played tennis and basketball, but he's been getting his touch back during this season and yesterday he had his best varsity game ever-- and coach rewarded him with the "man of match" award-- a free sub-- he dominated both outside mid-positions; won a ball and beat a couple got the game winning assist; set up two other perfect assists that players outright missed, hit the post on two shots-- one of which was an incredible left-footed bending ball from outside the 18 on the right flank-- pursued all over the field and won balls, trapped every long ball perfectly, hit a number of quick one-touch give-and-goes and generally hustled, played smart, and won a lot fo balls . . . and he managed to make it uninjured until three minutes left in the game, when he went to shoot and got crushed by two players, one sliding in, the other next to, causing him to flip over (he's 5 foot 11 and only 130 pounds) and land on his back, knocking the wind out of him . . . but he was fine today and hopefully he'll perform just as well tomorrow.
Dave Grohl and Langston Hughes, Together at Last?
You're not going to read Dave Grohl's memoir for the writing quality: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music is kind of cheesy . . . and you're not going to read it for the inside scoop on Kurt Cobain-- he doesn't get into the drugs and depression and Courtney Love stuff very much-- but you might like his attitude about music, which borders on religious fervor-- and the anecdotes-- which feature loads of musicians that I love (notably Iggy Pop, Tom Petty, Lemmy and Pantera) and if you're up for a real adventure, you could listen to the new episode of We Defy Augury, "Dave Grohl and Langston Hughes Rock the House," which features the Grohl book, Langston Hughes, and a bunch of other connected audio cameos.
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