Colson Whitehead's new novel Harlem Shuffle is not as dark and profound as The Underground Railroad but it still explores race and place-- Ray Carney appears to be a straight furniture salesmen to most of the uptown denizens of Harlem-- but he's more crooked than the average person might think (but less crooked than his father and many of the hoods that abound in his neighborhood) and while there's no surreal time-traveling train, the structures of grift, corruption and power are quite different when he pops out of the subway downtown, where the white people are-- the book is a caper tale, a revenge story, an astute take on the duality of human nature, an evocative period piece, and a real page turner, definitely worth a read.
Summer sans Motor Vehicle
Relaxing summer so far: the kids take the cars to their various job so all that's left for me to do is pull my training sled up and down the hill by my house, work on my podcast, watch Wimbledon, bike to the pool, swim a few laps, pass out with a book in a lounge chair, then bike home (my wife seems to have a bunch of other stuff she's occupied with, but I try not to let it interrupt my focus).
Trip to Possumtown!
My wife and I took a road trip to the Possumtown Firehouse last night for what I thought was going to be a two hour CPR class-- I need to update my certificate for coaching-- but the course also included First Aid and the lady running the class was a bit disorganized and a bit tangential, so we were there from 6 PM until nearly 10 PM, learning about tourniquets and nosebleeds and impalements and all kinds of things that make me dizzy-- luckily there was a large couch in the very comfy Possumtown Volunteer Firehouse (the lady's dad was the chief) and this place really had small town firehouse character: a big TV and a kegerator and a soda machine that you could just open and take the soda out and a fish tank with some big fish in it (I watched these fish when the videos got too graphic about blood) and the class was quite intimate, just me, my wife, and a young dude-- it was kind of stream-of-consciousness, with lots of anecdotes from the teacher's EMT experiences and the main thing I learned-- which no other class was so blunt about-- was that you don't need to worry about breaking someone's ribs when you're doing CPR because they are CLINICALLY DEAD . . . once she put it that way, it assuaged a lot of my fears about pressing too hard or whatever, you're literally trying to resurrect someone when you're doing those compressions (and we always have an AED nearby when I coach, so hopefully that machine will do the trick . . . although if someone like me goes down, you'll need the razor in the accessory kit top deal with my excessive chest hair).
Youngsters are Cute . . . But F%$% 'em
Youngsters ARE cute-- as evidenced by the baby raccoon that Lola and I saw cavorting in a tree at the park-- and they the future, of course, but I was still happy to see Novak Djokovic come back from two sets down against the young Jannik Sinner and watch Nadal finish off Taylor Fritz, who is more than ten years his junior . . . I've talked to quite a few people who are sick of seeing those old pros win over and over (with the possibility of a Federer return?) but I'm rooting for them-- because when they start losing, it means we're all that much closer to obscurity and death.
Impressive Stuff
Impressive amount of people at the Rutgers pool yesterday for Fourth of July; impressive amount of meats served, not so impressive performance by Alec and I in the balloon toss (I blame the overfilled balloon), very impressive amounts of lantern fly nymphs on the trees, tables, and one old guy; impressive amount of fireworks on display from Connell's back deck-- perhaps we could see displays from North Brunswick, South Brunswick, Milltown, Sayreville and Somerville but it was hard to tell . . . Cat and I returned home stuffed and tired and I was glad to get back to the routine today: I went to the gym, then biked to the pool-- which was empty-- did some laps, passed out on a lounge chair while reading my book, woke up and biked home (I don't understand how people bike enormous distances-- my butt hurts when I ride a few miles).
Right on the Note
No irony at our town fireworks display last night: they blasted Katy Perry's song "Firework" as the shit blew up-- and some nine-year-old behind me remarked, "this song is perfect for this."
Sort of Relaxing Saturday
It could have been a relaxing Saturday . . . but I got up early and did some work on my new podcast-- it's called We Defy Augury, I'm looking for guests, and it's up and running-- you just have to read something you've read and talk about what the reading makes you think about-- and then I played 90 minutes of two-on-two basketball with my older son and a couple guys at the Piscataway Y, and then I collapsed on the couch-- ostensibly to relax and watch some Wimbledon . . . but the featured match was Nick Kyrgios vs. Stefano Tsitsipas and it was NOT relaxing-- I was really rooting for Tsitsipas and he was trying his best to deal with Kyrgios's antics but Kyrgios spent the entire match bickering with the line judge and talking to himself like a lunatic and playing at a breakneck pace (and serving the hell out of the ball) and while Tsitsipas had his chances, he just couldn't break Kyrgios's menacing serve.
The Joy of Joy
I'm starting to understand Joy Williams a bit more-- I just finished The Quick and the Dead and her fragmented moments and motifs are starting to make sense; Annabel, Alice, and Corvus are three precocious girls linked by grief-- all of them have lost parents to terrible tragedy-- and they wander through a nameless desert town-- volunteering at a grim nursing home, forging strange relationships with older people, navigating a big game hunter's taxidermy museum . . . and all through, the living and the dead interact, and man and nature push against each other in strange oppressive ways . . . once again, the world is on the verge of something apocalyptic and these girls realize this more than the adults who are blinder by their petty thoughts.
Victory . . . But At What Cost? At What Cost?
I beat Dr. Michael Atkin today at tennis 7-5-- it was a grueling match and I rarely get the best of him (he's the quickest 40 year old this side of the Raritan) and then I had to bike home from the match (because Ian took the van to work) and I saw my wife's car parked on the road but she wasn't in the house or the yard (though the shed was open) and I yelled around to see if she was home, but she wasn't inside-- and then a few minutes later she poked her head in the house and said, "You really didn't see me painting the front porch? You biked right past me? RIGHT past me!" and she was correct-- I didn't see her, or the entire painting set-up-- the match took away all my noticing skills (and I don't have many to begin with) and if the police would have interrogated me I would have swore up and down, on my grandmother's grave, that my wife was NOT in the driveway-- and that's why I don't believe anything anyone says they saw or didn't see because while people may be great at seeing and hitting a bouncy yellow ball, they're not so great at seeing other stuff.
If You Live In Jersey (and Teach) Check This Out
Holy shit . . . my wife saved us a boatload of money by switching from Liberty Mutual Insurance to Teachers Insurance through Plymouth Rock-- she actually thought it was some kind of scam (but it turns out it's less than half the price for the same specs . . . nuts).
Summer Begins?
This morning was going to be the official start of summer relxation for Catherine and me-- school is over, Alex's graduation party successful and complete, the clean-up of Alex's party also successful and complete, plenty of leftover food from the party so no reason to cook, both kids heading out the work at their respective jobs . . . all good stuff, but when I was going down to my study at 5:30 AM to do some recording, I noticed a crazy sound coming from the basement-- I thought it might be coming from an open window in the basement, but it was actually coming from the freezer-- and the freezer door was left WIDE open . . . as wide open as possible, and the condenser fan was frozen and most of the food had defrosted-- and there was a bag of peanut butter squares (leftover dessert from the party) on the counter and the only person who had been down there to eat them was Ian . . . so I had to wake up my wife and wake Ian up and we went into freezer crisis mode-- we filled a cooler with ice, threw what was still frozen into the cooler with some ice, made Ian cook the rest of the defrosted stuff: some ground beef, some ground turkey, and some sausage-- and we'll be having shrimp for dinner tonight because those were totally defrosted-- and then we unplugged the fridge and let the ice melt-- hopefully it will start working again-- and then we settled in to some serious college financial budgeting-- yuck-- and we made a hard decision and canceled HBO MAX (that fifteen dollars a month is really going to help?) but we did not cancel YouTube TV because there are too many upcoming sporting events (and what else are we going to do since we can't go out to eat or go to bars or live events or go on vacation or go shopping or pretty much do anything except pay for college).
What the Hell is a Harrow?
Reading Joy Williams is like scrambling up a muddy embankment . . . but there is no top of the cliff, it's all scrambling; Harrow is set at a cryptic boarding school with strange slogans and then the school closes and then the main character Khristen-- if you could call her that-- finds herself in an odd post-apocalyptic world, a world that has gone beyond the "verge" that we've been at for so long and falls into a slightly more chaotic state-- there are strange episodes at a bowling alley, where a cake with a depiction of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son offends a youngster, and then a long strange section about seditious geriatrics living around a toxic lake, plotting revenge against ecologically corrupt humans . . . but these plans come to naught, raising the question: why aren't old people more violent and rebellious? they've got nothing to lose, right? . . . I think Joy Williams might be a modern-day Kafka, and she refers to him-- I don't think this book is her best work-- I was more compelled by The Changeling and now I'm making my way through The Quick and the Dead and that one has some roots and rocks in the mud to hang on to, but it does feel a bit like reading Pynchon, except the vocabulary is right there and easier to ascertain and comprehend-- each sentence a little masterpiece, but how do you connect them together . . . or should you?
The Slow Decay of Summer Begins!
We had a successful graduation party for Alex yesterday-- Catherine did SO much preparation-- salsa bar, three kinds of taco meats, gorditas, chorizo-stuffed peppers, centerpieces, photo decorations, Rutgers decorations, lots of tables and chairs-- and it was the first time we've seen both her brothers in the same location for quite a while . . . a good time was had by all and Alex and Ian were wonderful, social and helpful and appreciative (even though Alex has some kind of sinus congestion and feels like shit . . . they were much better than I was at those kinds of events when I was in high school-- in fact, they're probably better than I am now) and now we can stop cleaning the house and fixing stuff and let the slow decay of summer begin!
People Dreamed of Ohio
I read David McCullough's The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West on my Kindle, in dreamish fragments, late at night when I could not sleep-- and this dreamlike state is appropriate for a place that stern New Englanders warned about-- they didn't want folks to fall prey to "Ohio Quixotism," but according to McCullough, after some initial despair and violence and death-- due to war between the settlers and the Native American tribes-- things settled down and became heroically civil, especially in Marietta-- the center of the narrative-- and education and experimentation and agriculture and society ruled the day, and all this without slavery, and eventually, the trains and the riverboats connected Ohio to many other parts of the country but this is a great reminder of what occurred before these modern technologies-- and while McCullough doesn't focus on this, also what civilization was lost when the settlers moved in and displaced the indigenous people . . . the book really does get across what an epic and wild and life-changing adventure it was to travel what is now a day's journey by car-- back then it was a place from which you might never return.
Softball Drivers
There's a big softball tournament in the park by my house and some softball parent from South Jersey passed out at the wheel of her Jeep, barrelled through the wood barrier in the parking lot, and knocked the community garden fence down-- and she was headed straight for my wife's garden!-- luckily, her car stopped and a county employee ran over, turned the car off, and got her out of the vehicle . . . apparently she didn't eat breakfast.
Still in the Ending Mode
The End is Nigh (Or Is It The Beginning?)
Alex graduated yesterday-- a lovely ceremony on the front lawn of Highland Park High School-- and then he went to Project Graduation (an event at the Woodbridge Community Center from 10 PM to 4 AM) and so he was coming home when I was leaving this morning for early morning badminton-- pretty weird-- and after my stupid penultimate day of school (a random A day with nothing to do until graduation practice) I came home to a million projects-- my wife is getting the house ready for Alex's graduation party on Saturday, so I shouldn't be writing this sentence, I should be sanding or scraping or fixing the bike shed or something (plus I've got to pick Ian up from work-- he started as a tennis instructor today-- we have four drivers and two cars this summer, so that's going to be kind of nuts until we figure out the schedule).
A Great Father's Day Weekend
Saturday was the big $25 dollar a head random draw cornhole tournament at my cousin Tim's father-in-law's house in North Brunswick and while I was hoping to win two tournaments in a row, it was not to be-- I thought my partner, Manny, might have some potential but after the first round, he couldn't put a bag on the board, but the tournament turned out well anyway, especially for Father's Day weekend-- as both my kids were playing (I subsidized their fee, with the promise that they would pay me back if they won money) and they ended up placing second and third-- Ian was playing with a guy named Chad, who was a North Brunswick alum a year younger than me-- and they eventually lost to Alex's team-- Alex drew the same partner as last year (who might be Manny's brother?) and while he was a disaster last year, this year his guy figured out how to put a few on the board and Alex was on fire-- I had to square off against him and we lost a tight one, which was fine with me, because then Alex and Ian had to play in the semi-finals and they had a close match but most importantly-- the best Father's Day gift-- they were totally civil and didn't get into a fist fight-- so they both made some cash and I got $50 of the $75 I laid out for all of us to play, a win/win, and then I had a wonderful Father's Day-- the kids gave me a framed picture of the tennis team, perhaps the last time I coach both of them together (although we've been playing some pick-up basketball at the park and I still have to tell them where to go) and this is all a reminder that I'm a very lucky dad, with a beautiful loving wife and two athletic healthy kids (and a fairly well-behaved dog) and I've got to remember to enjoy that.
In the Money
Another fabulous EBHS end-of-the-year party: the Victory beer was free, the pool was warm, and Kristyn and I finally won the corn-hole tournament-- we usually make it to the finals, and then-- because we have over-served ourselves on free beer-- we collapse . . . but not this time!
Two Things I Learned Late in Life
Here are two things I learned very recently:
1) leftover wings are delicious if you reheat them on the grill;
2) when you're in the shower and you depress one nostril with your index finger and shoot snot out the other nostril, even if you aim for the drain, the snot might end up on your body so if you don't spray yourself thoroughly after you do this, you might get out of the shower with some snot on you.
It Took A While
My brother, an accomplished jazz pianist, has always sung the praises of Steely Dan, but I never got it-- until today, in the car . . . I put on "Aja" and I really dug it, so you never know when your taste will change (and unless you go back to stuff, you'll really never know if your taste changes).
Am I This Guy? I Guess So
As an adult, at some point while reading a sci-fi series, you ask yourself:
"Am I really the kind of person who reads an entire sci-fi series?"
and I'm at that point with Cibola Burn, the fourth book in the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey-- this was my favorite season of the TV show and the book fills in a lot of gaps-- a LOT of gaps . . . it's a bit interminable in spots, but there's also so much good stuff: the protomolecule built a ring gate that gives humans access to thousands of worlds across the galaxy, and this book is mainly set on New Terra, a planet that seems habitable and rich in lithium and other resources . . . but it's not habitable at all- there are conflicts between colonists/squatters and official security, there are poisonous slime worms and blindness inducing bacteria, there is ancient technology built by the protomolecule which is starting to awake, there are volcanoes and storms and technologically crippling defense systems . . . so it was a lot of fun, but also LONG, long enough that I wanted to get back to some quality non-fiction or something . . . I will say it's a better fourth book than the fourth one in the Game of Thrones series-- and I was asking myself the same question-- am I really this kind of guy?-- but I forged on and the fifth book was better (I think there are a couple more books slated to come out soon, I'm going to need a recap) and so I might continue on with this Expanse series, I love the characters and all the hard sci-fi stuff, though I think the action scenes could be pared down and so, despite the fact that I'm a grown-ass man, I might be the kind of grown-ass man that finishes an epic sci-fi series.
It's Been a Day, A Birth Day . . .
Today is my younger son's seventeenth birthday, and he was scheduled for his driving test at 11 AM . . . but first, he needed to attend a training for his summer job as a tennis instructor at the Rutgers Prep camp (with the affable curmudgeon Ted Ransom) and we borrowed our friend's car for the driving test because you need a vehicle with an emergency brake in between the seat-- which is rare in new cars, so most people just pay the driving school to use their car, which is a total scam-- anyway, I was slated to do all this stuff with the birthday boy, but first we had an early appointment with Steve the Appliance Doctor-- and his prognosis on our stove was not good, we need a $500 valve to fix the thing-- so then Ian and I drove over to Rutgers Prep and just after we crossed the Landing Lane Bridge we witnessed a car accident, nothing epic and lucky for us it wasn't on our side-- and then I took a walk on the tow road while he trained and I learned a lot-- a friendly fisherman showed me a picture of a fifteen-pound catfish he caught in the canal the other day and he also informed me-- totally new information-- that there are pike and muskellenge in the canal-- musky!-- and I saw a lot of wildlife on my walk: turtles, a big snake, all kinds of flowers, frogs, tadpoles, and little fish . . . and an herbalist, an African American dude decked out with all kinds of harvesting gear and he told me about the powers of elderberry flowers and then I asked him if the plant on the side of the path was poison ivy and he grabbed it and took a look and confirmed that yes it was poison ivy and I was like "don't touch that shit" and he said only sixty percent of people are allergic-- which seems to be lowballing it-- and I have also read that every time you touch the stuff, you increase your likelihood of getting it, so he might have to use some of his elderberry flowers on himself . . . then we went over to the Kilmer DMV, with all our documentation, but one minute into the driving test it was over-- the instructor said that the emergency brake was too loose and that we had to get it fixed and we had two hours to do so or our appointment would be voided-- so we started driving to the mechanic but I knew that was as shot in hell, so I called Ian's driving instructor and he happened to be in the vicinity giving a lesson, so we met him in the parking lot, gave him 80 bucks and he took Ian over in his car-- what a scam, but at least it worked out-- and then Ian had a fairly wild driving test-- he had to slam on the brakes because a lady ran through a stop sign and when he tried to parallel park an old man pulled up right behind him-- but he's a great driver, so he handled it all and passed and then we got to spend some quality time in the DMV-- and though we had every fucking document on earth, it still wasn't enough for their byzantine requirements-- and we had to reprint all the numbers in the little boxes because Ian crossed out a date-- and then they asked me if I had a driver's license and I said yes and that somehow was enough stuff and he got his picture taken, got a temporary license, we went to Don Huang for noodles, and then Ian went to do some yardwork for a lady across town and he drove himself-- which was wonderful-- and then when he got back, we went to the park and played some pick-up basketball with random folks and then settled in to eat a home-cooked meal of Indian food, quite a busy birthday.
Short and Old
The more my kids have grown, the more they've gotten into basketball-- and while they're not very good, they have long arms and can kind of play now, and when we play one-on-one, their arms are so long that I can't shoot over them unless I step back to Steph Curry range, so I have to bang forward and try for hook shots, which is exhausting and ugly . . . but I'm glad they're getting into hoops again so that they can play pick-up ball in college-- it took me four years of playing on the ugliest team in intramural basketball, the Nicks (named after Nick Huth) to achieve any kind of skill in the sport-- and now it's all downhill for me.
It's Friday, I Think
The closer we get to the end of the year, the more time becomes elastic and the longer the 84 minute block schedule classes seem . . . this week felt beyond eternal, every moment a mini-infinity, so that when Friday finally ended, it seemed as if the year reset and it was a dry September afternoon in 2022.
Epic Hump Day
My buddy Jeff cajoled me into getting up early this morning to play badminton with the 6 AM badminton crew-- the last time I did this was in the late '90s-- and though it was very early, it was also very fun-- and I was still able to whack the shuttlecock with some accuracy and power, despite the twenty-three year hiatus; we played until 7:15 because a few of us had the first period of the day off, giving us time to shower-- but I got called for a first period coverage, so I had to rush to get my clothes on and get over to K Hall . .. and then I realized that I had forgotten my belt and I've lost some weight so my pants are quite loose-- they don't mention the down side of shedding a few pounds: you might get fired for indecent exposure . . . but Stacey came up with a solution and I used some of her knitting yarn to cinch my pants together and I made it through the day without showing the students my underwear; then I had to rush home to get ready for the end-of-season tennis party-- which turned out to be great fun; in addition to MVP and Coach's Award, I gave out a bunch of wacky awards (such as "Most Likely to Crash His Skateboard Right Before a Match and be Unable to Play" and "Best Use of the Headband") and the kids played some corn-hole, ate pizza, and a few are still here in the driveway playing ping-pong . . . I couldn't ask for a nicer bunch and I'm a little sad that this will be the last time I coach both my kids on the same team.
I Have a Dream . . .
I have a dream to make the side of my backyard like the back of my backyard . . . to make a similar leafy green wall of fargesia clumping bamboo along the fenceline so I can't see my neighbors and they can't see me-- but I suffered for my dream today, while I was transplanting a smaller bamboo plant to a cramped slot behind a plastic storage chest when I bent over to shape some soil around the roots of the plant and a pointy bamboo stalk poked me in the eye; it hurt, my hands were covered in dirt, and I needed to shower to get the remnant of the stalk out of my eye socket . . . but it will all be worth it in a couple of years (but why didn't I do this years ago?)
The End is Nigh
In class today, Hamlet-- who recently returned to Denmark from a near-death adventure with pirates-- confronted Yorick's skull today and the inevitability of decay . . . and my seniors, who returned from their near-death adventures over prom weekend, must now also face their own imminent decay-- they are graduating and growing older by the minute and will never look this way again (also, I'm writing this over the din of professional lawncare equipment-- that shit is so LOUD).
Crowded Bridge, Noisy Bridge, Deserted Bridge, Little Bridge
Yesterday's Man Hike (led by Dave Tulloch) started out reminiscent of the day my wife and I spend in New York a few months ago but the reason this is called the Man Hike is not sexist-- only men would be stupid enough to spoil a good day in NYC by walking way too far (although not as far as this one and better weather than this one) and so while we started out in known territory-- we took the train to the Oculus, carefully examined the treescape (pretty incredible irrigation system) and the survivor tree at the 9/11 Memorial (and then saw a clone of the tree that inspired Anne Frank and the church where George Costanza attempted to convert to Latvian Orthodoxy) and then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with the throngs of people-- this was the crowded bridge-- then did NOT stop in DUMBO for pictures, beer and food-- instead we zipped right back across the noisy bridge-- the Manhattan Bridge-- shouting above the roar of the train-- beautiful views, anyone who was anyone was riding around on their yacht in the East River-- and then we walked a bit (and Pete and I lost the group when we stopped for Asian pastries) and crossed back into Brookly on the Williamsburg Bridge (which was empty) and walked through Greenpoint and other Brooklyn neighborhoods and saw ALL the hipsters and young people, out and about, we stopped for some amazing pizza, and then crossed the small(ish) Pulaski Bridge into Queens-- and I had never really wandered about in Queens so that was new and then we made out way to the a park on the water near Roosevelt Island and caught a ferry all the way back down to Wall Street, had a few beers and a burger, and hitched a ride home with Doug, who took a shortcut through Staten Island . . . so we visited four of the five boroughs, walked some 35,000 steps, and only neglected the Bronx.
Geoff Dyer Gives Up on Giving Up
Geoff Dyer-- famous for Out of Sheer Rage, his anti-biography of D.H Lawrence, which becomes a mediation on procrastination-- has written another weird and wonderful and obscure and profound book, The Last Days of Roger Federer and Other Endings . . . I often struggle with some of his references, and he alludes and refers widely, from literature and jazz and French film to soccer and tennis and Beethoven and Nietzsche; but mainly this book deals with something from a Joy Williams story, when an adult tells a young girl:
"I hope you're enjoying your childhood. When you grow up, a shadow falls. Everything's sunny and then this big goddamn wing or something passes overhead."
and this book is Dyer contemplating life under this shadowy giant wing, as the end approaches-- the end of his tennis playing, the end of Roger Federer's career, the end of movies and films and books and musical pieces, the never-ending non-ending of Bob Dylan, the odd endings that happen when some people are still young-- such as Bjorn Borg and fighter pilots in WWII-- the end of stealing shampoo, the end of artistic purpose, and the end of The Tempest . . . the book ultimately asks the question "when should a creator stop creating?" and the answer is never, never stop until you stop.
Hamlet is Perfect for Seniors in June
It must be getting near the end of the year, as we finished Act IV of Hamlet today; Ophelia finally met her tragic, but beautiful, flower-strewn, mermaid-like demise . . . and after three hours of planning, procrastinating, and pontificating, you'd think that the play would be near the end-- but Shakespeare really lost his mind with this one: he figured out how to get Hamlet back to Denmark-- oddly friendly pirates!-- but he isn't quite ready to resolve things, Laertes still needs to do the whole jumping in the grave thing, Hamlet needs to do "alas poor Yorick" and "the readiness is all" and we also need the weird interlude with Osric (played by Robin Williams in the Branagh version) before we get the final violence and the endless last words . . . it's a perfect play to do at the end of the year because it seems as if it will never end and the seniors keep asking what we will do in class after Hamlet and the answer is "the rest is silence."
The Last Days of Tennis (Like This)
All things must come to an end . . . and endings are worth meditation-- as evidenced by Geoff Dyer's fantastic book The Last Days of Roger Federer; and so I must note that the end of this wonderful high school tennis season is coming to a close-- we lost last night 3-2 in the continuation of our Group I State Semifinal match to Shore Regional and this was a match that had more controversy than usual because of a rain delay, a religious delay (we have two observant Jewish players) and a Memorial Day Weekend delay-- I even got some weird flak from a Shore parent, who insisted on showing me his phone to prove that it didn't rain on Saturday (which it most certainly did) but I explained to him that the reason we were playing last night was because we had two Jewish players who couldn't travel or play on the Sabbath and that the tournament director decided the match couldn't be played on Sunday or Memorial Day and thus pushed it all the way back until Tuesday . . . and then we couldn't play at the normal time on Tuesday because of the heat restriction so we had to play at 7 PM . . . he asked me if the match would have been postponed if players were sick and I countered with the fact that the match would have been canceled if it were Easter and then I told him he was acting weird and insinuating something and a detached myself from the situation-- one of the HP parents said the guy also said something about how his kid tried baseball but that tennis was one of the last "white sports" so there was a strange vibe out there; anyway, Ian came back and beat his kid at first singles and our second doubles team won handily but the center of the line-up was trouble-- there was no way Alex could beat their second singles-- he actually seemed better than the first singles player, and Boyang was facing a classic pusher (who actually had a higher UTR than first and second singles, slightly fishy) and he struggled to stay patient enough to find the perfect net shots to beat him . . . first doubles became our last hope, the two Jewish kids, but they were facing two tall dudes who could hit overheads-- they lost the first set but went up 5-0 in the second, only to lose in a tiebreaker 7-5 . . . which might have been for the better because they would have had trouble winning a third set . . . anyway, we've got two more matches to make-up, which will be nice so we don't end on this oddly elongated loss and it was truly a pleasure to coach this group of players (and two of my children) and it will be the last time, after many many years of doing so, that I will coach BOTH my children on the same team-- this happened for many years in soccer and just once in tennis and I've got to say, it's a wild experience-- you're invested as a coach and a parent so it's pretty emotional, but I think I navigated it as well as I could and I was proud of what good sports my team was during the match and once it was all over.
Keeping the Quadrupeds in Line
Deer bounding across the road are quite menacing when you're on rollerblades.
America's Gun Problem is Impossible
Derek Thompson's excellent and informative podcast Plain English details the four obstacles that impede any solution to the proliferation of guns and-- thus-- gun violence and mass shootings in America:
1) money . . . many politicians are in the pocket of the NRA and guns are big business;
2) cynical love of power . . . some politicians will do and say whatever is necessary to gain votes-- even if it's detrimental to our country;
3) the Second Amendment, fear of government overreach, the desire for freedom and liberty, and the ability to fight oppressors;
4) a genuine love of guns and a genuine gun culture-- this is the hardest one for many people to understand, but there is a whole nation of people out there that love guns-- they love the feel of the metal in their hand, they love shooting, they love talking about guns and buying guns and going places with other people with guns . . . and I think they think of guns the way other people think of cars or video games or whiskey . . . they love these things despite knowing that there are harmful consequences and externalities . . .
these are formidable obstacles and so it seems to me (and the podcast espouses this) that because there is a correlation between gun prevalence and gun violence, the only way to tackle the problem is statistically-- it has to be the same as cigarettes, which are still legal but stigmatized to the point where they aren't as prevalent as they once were . . . so little laws, little taxes, licensing requirements, background checks, etcetera . . . anything to reduce the number of guns will reduce the violence . . . but it's never going away . . . but it could get better-- cars are safer now and technology will make them less and less prone to crashing and perhaps we'll need similar technological solutions to deal with guns.
I Don't Serve on Shomer Shabbos!
The boys and I had off yesterday-- we never burned our snow days-- and my wife took off from her school, so this was supposed to be a relaxing day where we could sleep-in, get a few things done around the house, and then play our State Semi-Final tennis match at 4 PM . . . but the weather reports kept getting worse-- and while the other semi-finalist teams decided to play at noon to avoid the rain (Metuchen vs Florence . . . Florence won 3-2) for some logistical or transportation reason Shore Regional could not get out early to play us . . . so there was lots of texting and phone calls and I made a Google doc to figure out what day we could finish the match in case of rain, which reminded me that I have two observant Jewish players who can't really play on Saturday-- or one kid could walk to the courts, which are quite far from his house, but not drive in a car-- and then the weather cleared enough for Shore to come to Highland Park and we started the match, but soon enough a massive storm rolled in and we had to write down the details of every match-- and they were all close, a barnburner . . . except second doubles-- we took a solid lead there; the next problem was when to play, as we HAVE to complete the match by Tuesday, according to State Rules, so that the final match can be played ON Tuesday and then the winner can attend the Tournament of Champions, which is at Mercer County Park on Thursday-- that date is set in stone . . . but just after the match, my Athletic Director, a good friend of mine, got a call from the NJSIAA director and he said we HAD to play the match on Saturday-- no exceptions, religious or otherwise-- even though it was supposed to rain all day Saturday . . . so because we are the higher seed and home team, we had to provide indoor courts-- no easy feat in Central Jersey on Memorial Day Weekend . . . but my AD found some courts at noon on Saturday in East Brunswick and reserved them (with his own credit card!) but my Jewish player said he couldn't get there because he couldn't drive on the Sabbath and we brought this up to the tournament director and he said it didn't matter, so we were just going to have to forfeit that match . . . this still gave us a shot to win, as you only have to win three of the five matches-- so we were going to suck it up and win for religious tolerance and freedom and Walter from the Big Lebowski . . . but then things got interesting, the Jewish kid wrote an email and his father contacted our superintendent and the tournament director-- making the argument that if the next day was Easter, you wouldn't play the match-- you'd postpone until the next available school day, and I think the threat of a prejudicial lawsuit scared the tournament director because then I got another call from my AD and now we are finishing the match on Tuesday at normal time, so everyone can play and it will be a fair result . . . if we win, we'll have to play again Wednesday, so that's tough-- but at least we'll have all our players and the best chance possible . . . and win or lose, this was quite an adventure.
Respect the Speck
Hockey is hard enough to watch on TV, but if there's a black speck on the TV-- or several black specks on a couple of TVs-- then things can get really confusing . . . sometimes you're following the puck, sometimes you're following the speck, and sometimes-- like that magical moment on The Office when the DVD logo hits the corner-- the black speck intersects with the actual puck and reality breaks down into an inception of the matrix.
Whew . . .
I was nervous all day for our first state tennis match: we earned a bye in the first round and we had to play Point Beach today-- last year's sectional champ-- and while we matched up well against them, it's tennis, so you never know who's going to lose their mind, play poorly, smash their racket, start double-faulting . . . there are so many ways to fall apart in this stupid game . . . but we came to play; Ian had the toughest match, against a very solid player, and he beat him 6-0, 6-0 . . . and Alex, Boyang, and our very consistent second doubles team of Ethan and Patrick all won handily in two sets-- but we still can't figure out the perfect first doubles team-- they lost-- so we're going to experiment tomorrow and see what happens and then we'll probably play Shore Regional-- who is excellent-- in the semifinals on Friday.
The Horror, the Horror!
The year is winding down but we're still not done with Hamlet . . . or at least I'm not done with Hamlet-- one of my senior students looked like she was attentively following along with the play, holding her book in the classic two-handed meditative literary pose, but then I noticed that she had her cell-phone inside the book-- as we used to do back in the day with comic books (most notably, School is Hell by Matt Groening) and so I made her put the phone into the pocketed phone holder in the front of the room; apparently she was shopping, some prom dress algorithm blocking the text to one of the great works in the canon, which is exactly what those folks at Amazon are trying to do.
Crime and a Whole Lot More in 1963 L.A.
One-Shot Harry, by Gary Philips, certainly evokes Walter Mosely . . . Harry Ingram, a black journalistic photographer/ Korean War veteran, attempts to navigate a slew of issues in 1963 Los Angeles: the fishy death of his war-buddy-- a white jazz musician; racist police; radical leftists and a radical romance; a photographic blackmail scheme; some typical heavies; the Nation of Islam; power and politics; and a plot against Dr. Martin Luther King . . . the prose is clear, the plot is thick, and the perspective offers a counterpoint to James Ellroy's take on this particular time and place.
Ian = Work
Ian put in some hours working this weekend; Saturday he went to his county trail maintenance job with his brother and the heat was so brutal that they let them go home after lunch-- but that was enough time for Ian to ruin his gloves and consequently have to throw them away-- they were at some park in Old Bridge and they ended up cleaning up a homeless encampment and-- by accident-- Ian touched a bag of homeless person poop which ripped open (or something like this, he told me the story at a family bbq and I cut him short because I was eating) and then Sunday morning Ian worked for a lady, weeding and mowing her lawn, and then he went and mowed another lawn and then he called Ed Ransom, to see if he could work at his tennis camp, and Ed Ransom, a veteran teaching pro, said he needed to take a look at his game because he wanted someone to teach the advanced kids so we met him at a nearby park and the job interview turned into a tennis lesson (and Ian passed the interview, got the job, and improved the kick on his second serve) and now he's taking a well-deserved rest.
AITA?
There's a forum on Reddit called AITA (Am I the Asshole?) and I wanted to put this incident on there (but forgot to post it) but I got into a bit of a beeping/traffic situation in the school parking yesterday afternoon, so I wrote that one up and posted it on Reddit . . . check it out and upvote me!
The Jack Wong Effect?
On Tuesday, my son Ian got to play Jack Wong, the eventual winner of the GMC tourney (and one of the best players in the state) and then he had another tough match on Wednesday against Spotswood's top player, senior Jason Acheampong; in the first set, though both players were hitting the ball very well, Ian beat him 6-0 and when he came over to talk to me he said, "After Playing Jack Wong, the ball looks like it's going so slow . . . everything is easier" but then the Jack Wong Effect wore off and he lost the second set 6-0 . . . but then he rallied and won the third set 6-3, a nice victory after playing a ton of tennis the day before . . . and we noticed the other player who played Jack Wong on Tuesday (and, like my son, got beaten handily) also had a great match on Wednesday and beat a good opponent decisively; the other thing that happened during the Spotswood match was an annoying hack of a tennis player, a white dude in a tie-dyed shirt, expressed some annoyance and impatience about the fact that there was a high school match going on and we were taking up six courts; I informed him that some of the matches might finish in 45 minutes or so and he would just have to wait and then he went over to the sixth court-- where some beginner high school players were having a match and apparently he insulted their play and told them their match would never finish because they couldn't hit the ball, so the kids came up to me and informed me and I went over to the guy and gave him a piece of my mind-- and I get very defensive when anyone fucks with my players so while I felt myself getting angry, I figured out a way to deal with the situation without punching the guy (and the Spotswood coach, who is a football guy and ex-lineman, had made his way over as well) but instead of yelling at the guy and losing my shit, I played the pedophile card and told him it was very odd that he was lurking around a high school sporting event, especially since he wasn't a parent or a coach, and that he was interacting with my youngest players . . . which I deemed highly inappropriate-- and then I told him he could read about the results in the newspaper and he needed to get away from the children and this worked quite well-- he beat a hasty retreat into the parking lot (and the Spotswood coach was impressed with my method, and now I know to use this method if this ever happens again).
Setting the Story Straight
My wife insists that I revise yesterday's narrative, when I presented a video of a Killer Deer . . . apparently this particular deer, a female, was protecting a newly born fawn-- the fawn was on the other side of the road, and neither Lola nor I saw it, but my wife did when she went down to the park a few minutes later to investigate . . . so this doe was just being an overprotective parent and the "killer" moniker is absolute hyperbole.
Men . . . We're the Best
I learned from a Freakonomics Radio Podcast (Women are Not Men) that while women are catching up and even surpassing men educationally and economically, there are some things at which men still significantly outperform women . . . things such as drowning and getting struck by lightning (men overestimate their ability to swim and they are outside more than women and don't come in during storms) and I believe I have found another thing that men excel at-- getting attacked by large animals . . . this morning while I was accompanying my dog Lola on her usual constitutional to Donaldson Park, we were confronted by an unusually aggressive deer-- and I normally let Lola off leash so that she can chase the deer down the hill and into the park, so they don't eat all the neighborhood hostas and spread deer ticks and cause traffic accidents-- but this morning was different (as you can witness in the video) and this doe would NOT back down and eventually charged us-- and this happened on our way down to the park and our way back home-- on our way back home the deer actually stalked us-- and my wife wondered why I had video of this-- why on earth I was would mess with this deer twice and I really had no good answer for her, other than the fact that I am a stupid man-- in fact, I should have realized that the doe was protecting a fawn, instead of screwing with it . . . and I later learned that when I sternly admonished the charging deer to "cut it out," it actually could have kicked me several times in the face instead of listening to me . . . anyway, Lola and I lived to tell the tale and we're not going to fuck with that doe any more.
So Much Tennis . . .
Today was the GMC Tennis Tournament, an all day tennis extravaganza with 26 teams from Middlesex County in attendance . . . we left for Thomas Edison Park at 8 AM-- packing food, water, chairs, tarps, coolers, sunblock, sandwiches, snacks, rackets, balls, etcetera-- and Ian lucked out with a prelim walkover so then he played an undefeated kid from the lower division and he beat him handily in the first set 6-0 but then started fooling around in the second set but still ended up winning 7-5, giving him the honor of playing the overall number one seed (and one of the top five players in the entire state) Jack Wong from East Brunswick . . . so he got to have some fun against a serious athlete and college player-- Ian had to back up to the fence to hit his serve back and while he was able to stay in some games, he couldn't take one . . . Jack Wong also hit a court length tweener that turned out to be a winner; Alex had a similar fate, he won his prelim in a tiebreaker and then got to play the number one seed in second singles-- another East Brunswick kid (East Brunswick had the number one seed in all five events) and our other players and teams had a good day as well-- everyone advanced to the second round; Boyang then lost in a close one to the Metuchen kid (again) and first and second doubles faced very strong teams, after winning their preliminary matches . . . so no complaints-- everyone got to play two matches, no one got injured, we saw some incredible tennis, and we got some great practice for the state tournament (where we play only Group I schools, so we should be competitive).
Be Prepared and Have a Plan?
This morning the weather report was grim: "High winds, severe thunderstorms, possible large hail, possible tornado" and there was an actual exclamation point next to the three weather slot and the recommendation to "be prepared and have a plan," and when I ran this by my students, none of them were aware of this and none of them had a plan . . . but apparently, it didn't matter-- the big storm never materialized, very disappointing, but the looming threat was probably good because it meant that the GMC Tennis Tourney was postponed until tomorrow-- so I was able to go to school today and spread the word about a nonexistent storm (and I was very successful in my acting endeavor, which related to the start of scene 3.2 in Hamlet, in which I pretended to choke on some water-- it went down the wrong pipe-- and then, in a coughing fit, consequently knocked over the water bottle, spilling water all over the carpet . . . the kids couldn't believe I was acting and decided that I should pursue a film career, though I could only act in movies where I pretend to choke on stuff and then knock things over).
Here We Go Again . . .
It's hot, it's humid, and-- just in case you thought you were safe in the water-- the lantern-fly eggs masses, mortar colored and ready to hatch, are dotting the trees in abundance.
Tranquil Time Travel
Emily St. John Mandel's new novel Sea of Tranquility floats by in an otherworldly manner, which makes sense-- since it is beautifully written about other worlds, other times, other timelines, and other possibilities . . . and while there are ghosts of the post-apocalyptic, post-pandemic world of Station 11, the current COVID pandemic, and the author herself, the book flows by in an odd, serene state of hypothetical possibility, the possibility that the world is a simulation, the possibility that you might interview yourself, that you might go back in time and live a recursive life, the possibility of moving too fast and too far, and the possibility of being still, and the possibility that time and motion and memory might be corrupted like a bad file . . . this was a much smoother and philosophical read than the last time travel novel I read, The Paradox Hotel.
More Tennis Adventures
We enjoyed a nice 4-1 win yesterday against St Joe's-- especially since their players were all wound up for senior day-- unfortunately, we didn't know that their school does NOT have tennis courts, so we went all the way over there, drove around a bit on their campus, and then learned that they play in Thomas Edison Park-- which is right next to Highland Park-- so we drove over there, got started late, had a couple matches go into the third set (and Ian was in an endless match with a really strong athletic senior) and when we finally finished it off, I found out that the freshman Ethan had ordered Uber Eats-- McDonald's-- but Ethan couldn't find the driver and this generally pissed me off because I had to be home to get to the GMC seeding meeting to learn about the county tournament so we searched the park for a few minutes for the delivery guy, but it's a giant park and the guy was way late, so I told Ethan to get a refund-- which he did-- and we headed home and I told the entire team to check with me before they did anything stupid (such as order food to be delivered to an enormous park).
People Are More Different Than You Believe
One of the essential things I always try to remember is that there are lots of people that genuinely believe things-- holy things, moral things, sciencey things, etcetera-- and that is going to be really important going forward with oncoming the Roe v. Wade conflict . . . as a nonbeliever in most things, aside from the fact that sports with a ball are a good way to spend your time, I have to recognize that a bunch of folks with very vehement beliefs about where and when and under what circumstances you can abort a fetus are going to scream and shout at one another and many of us that have no clue as to the right and wrong of this are going to get caught in the crossfire.
A Tough Loss and a Tough Win
Monday we had a big match against Metuchen which will probably determine the winner of the White Division-- and the two smallest schools by a large margin are at the top of the leaderboard-- and while the match started ugly for us, we made a nice comeback and Alex-- at second singles-- came up with a big win against last year's first singles player; Ian, unfortunately, had to play their young phenom, who stepped right into the first singles slot, and though Ian took an early lead, he lost the first set-- and he asked me what to do when "all this kid hits are winners" and I told him to hit it deep and hang in, which he did and he won the second set 6-3 so they headed to a third; meanwhile, Boyang was struggling at third singles, and our first and second doubles lost the first set- so I thought it was over-- but apparently the second doubles team are crazy twin brothers (two of three triplets) who are great athletes but often flake out, which they did and so our second doubles won the second and third sets, Alex won his match-- epic-- Boyang and first doubles lost; so it was two -two and it all came down to Ian at first singles-- and he pulled the heavy hitter into a third set but then went down 4-0 and it looked like all was lost . . . but Ian won four in a row and then split, so it was 5-5 (and the text strand to my wife was getting more and more insane) and then they fought it out to the end and Ian lost 7-5 . . . unfortunate, but-- as I reminded the team-- most teams are playing for nothing right now, so the fact that we got to play a huge match at the end of the season is what it's all about . . . especially as a coach and a dad, I was happy to be there and happy to be involved-- anyway, we had to recover to play South Plainfield, another good team, who beat Wardlaw twice on Monday-- a very good team-- and Ian recovered and won against a good player in two sets, but we had troubles elsewhere so it all came down to second doubles-- and they were bickering a bit when the match went to a third set-- but we were able to calm them down and they won the third set 6-2, giving us an excellent victory after a tough loss (and, as a side note, Alex had an AP test yesterday-- AP Calc BC-- and he won his match, and Ian had an AP test today-- AP Lang-- and he won, so I told both my kids those were banner days, more happened in a day that will often happen in a year of adulthood).
Like the Shining, But With Time Travel
If you're looking for a fast-paced novel with gender fluidity and plenty of time travel, set in a spooky hotel, then you'll love Rob Hart's The Paradox Hotel . . . but if you like your mysteries to have a linear plot, then this book . . . maybe not.
Stacey Summons the Dead
Stacey and I have the same schtick when we begin Hamlet-- we both play the role of Horatio, who-- in the opening moments of the play-- is skeptical of ghosts and the supernatural . . . Marcellus explains, "Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him" and Horatio, in reference to the apparition, confidently asserts "tush, tush, 'twill not appear" but, moments after he says this, the ghost of Old Hamlet DOES appear and, after some good natured "I told you so!" by Barnardo (How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you on't?) Horatio admits that "Before my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes" and just before the apparition enters, Stacey and I always ask the class if they believe in ghosts, then chastise the believers for their irrationality and then we try to summon the dead, call upon the spirit world to strike us dead and stop our hearts, etc . . . and there are usually a few kids who get upset by this-- who don't think we should fuck around with the netherworld, whether we believe in it or not-- but we've never been haunted or struck dead . . . until now-- apparently last week, the night after Stacey did her ghost bit, she was visited by a spirit in the night, a little girl in a green sweatshirt that hovered over her bed-- twice!-- and she woke her husband up but he didn't see her and now she wonders if there might be spirits walking the earth, and she wonders if she has summoned them . . . but of course, I think she was dreaming or saw a shadow or whatever, as I am a logical and rational man-of-logic who would never be perturbed by such rubbish.
Happy Mother's Day?
Mother's Day did not start off so well this year-- Catherine's shoulder pain was so intense she couldn't sleep, despite various muscle relaxants, painkillers, and some wine-- so we went to the emergency room at Robert Wood Johnson this morning, and while Cat was in serious pain, the emergency room experience was as good as it gets-- everyone was super-kind and the procedures were fast and efficient, and she was able to get x-rays, a lidocaine patch, some kind of painkiller shot in her other arm, a prescription for anti-inflammatories and a diagnosis: calcific tendonitis, which is painful but better than a torn rotator cuff . . . and while i was picking up her prescription at the pharmacy, the pharmacist recognized me-- I taught him many years ago (he's 27 now) and he remembered the social experiment I did during Orwell's Shooting an Elephant," because he was my confidant in the ruse-- I kicked him out of class to demonstrate some elements of the narrative-- and he fondly remembered this, so that was a fun moment in an otherwise lousy day (but at least Lola is on the mend, and hopefully Cat will be better once she gets a steady does of naproxen in her system).
All Blue Food
All Blue Seafood and Ramen House is now just called All Blue Chinese Cuisine and no longer has ramen-- it's now a Sichuan Place and the food is delicious (and very authentic, according to reviews) and it's BYOB and fairly cheap; they give you some cold spicy potato strings in vinegar to start and you order by checking boxes on a paper menu-- we had Dan Dan noodles and spicy potatoes and beef with scallions -- the beef was really good-- and some wontons in chili oil . . . we will bring the kids next time and order more stuff, but this is a good one to try, just out of town on Route 27.
TGIFF
Thank God it's fucking Friday . . . what a week: Catherine woke up on Tuesday and she couldn't lift her right arm and had to go to urgent care and get a steroid shot for severe tendonitis in her shoulder and she's in terrible pain, unable to sleep, and on steroids and muscle relaxants; Lola was up in the middle of the night, needing to pee, and then had an accident on a couch cushion-- which never ever happens-- so she either passed a kidney stone or has a UTI; I had to write up a preponderance of evidence for my summary evaluation; I covered three classes this week, all on my three period teaching days-- so three days this week, I spent every minute of the day with children; more tennis matches have been canceled due to rain; not only did the Supreme Court Roe vs Wade doc get leaked, but so did a doc about changing our school start and end time, which frightened a number of people; AP testing is in full chaotic swing, for both my students and my own children; I had a nightmare ride to the vet this afternoon with the urine sample, and after fighting through traffic, had to wait in the parking lot for a long time until I told them I was just dropping off the urine and leaving because traffic was building up and I might never get home, and so I handed over the urine and beat a hasty retreat back to Highland Park-- but when I got out of the car, Lola yanked loose because she saw the mailman and she barked at him, as dogs are won to do at the mailman and it frightened the dude and he dropped a bunch of mail in a puddle and I had to apologize profusely-- so fucking embarassing-- and it's going to rain for a long long time . . . so if our basement doesn't flood, my wife's arm starts working again, and Lola doesn't have a UTI, we'll be through the thick of it.
How Far Would YOU Drive For an Abortion?
This post-Roe Map of America is going to inspire some interesting abortion travel campaigns: come to Chicago and stroll the Riverwalk, sample the deep-dish pizza, and get an abortion . . . visit Miami, for the Art Deco architecture, the Cuban sandwiches, the beaches, and the abortions . . . but, in the end this will be something of a class issue, because if you can't afford to travel and you need an abortion in Mississippi, you're going to be SOL.
He's Your Pusherman
Good outing for Highland Park yesterday, we beat Piscataway-- a Group IV school-- five to zero and while they weren't all that good in most positions, their first singles player was 5-2 and a classic skilled junk ball pusher-- the kind of player that drives decent high school players absolutely crazy . . . especially my son Ian who just wants to play some good tennis-- he's happy to lose a match where both players are hitting the hell out of the ball but can't stand just bopping it back-- but after a game the Piscataway player realized he couldn't beat Ian at fast-paced tennis so he started pushing and Ian made the usual errors, tried to hit too hard, got too close to the net, and got frustrated-- he fell behind 4-1 and then realized that all he had to do was push back and give the kid a taste of his own medicine, so he started lobbing on him and it was windy and the kid got gradually more and more pissed off and Ian came all the way back and won the first set and then slowly, so slowly, beat him handily in the second set-- by the end the kid was hitting all kinds of bizarre cut shots, serving underhand, and trying every trick in the book, but Ian stayed the course and never freaked out and got the win on a kid who beat everyone but the best players in the White with the weirdest, most annoying tennis strategy on record.
New Shit Has Come to Light
We were watching Goliath and someone used the phrase "crock of shit" and my older son Alex said, "what of shit?" and my wife and I said "crock" and Ian asked, "like a crock pot or like a Croc shoe?" and my wife and I said, "crock pot" but then we agreed that a Croc style clog full of shit was also an excellent thing to be full of shit, especially if you stuck your foot inside it.
The Ticks are Back in Town
The kids work outside all day on Saturdays, Catherine works on both her own garden and the community garden, and the dog and I spend plenty of time outdoors as well . . . so who knows exactly who is bringing the ticks into our house, but we are finding them-- on pants and skin and hair, and Ian-- with his especially good eyes-- spotted a minuscule one on the dog . . . the thing was so tiny it leads me to believe that resistance is futile (although I've been trying to convince the boys to shave their shaggy locks because I never have to worry about ticks on my head).
In My House, The Apple Falls Right Next to the Tree
Yesterday afternoon, I yelled up the stairs to my older son Alex, who is eighteen now, and asked him what kind of roll he wanted for his burger and he yelled back "Dad, I'm trying to take a nap!" which made perfect sense since he had worked all day for the County Parks, doing trail maintenance, and when I came back into the kitchen my wife said, "Who does that sound like?" and she laughed and laughed.
Spring is in the Air (Among Other Odors)
Lovely spring day: excellent for reading on the back deck, listening to the wind rustling through the bamboo, watching the birds alight amongst the budding trees, and smelling-- occasionally amidst the fresh scents of newly bloomed flowers-- the decaying scent of sweaty feet from the many sneakers airing out on the railing.
Thus Endeth the Streak
We finally dropped a White Division match-- after seven wins-- but I couldn't be more proud of my team; we traveled to the super-fancy private school Wardlaw Hartridge, a team that we edged out last match 3-2 because Ian beat their superb first singles player, but Wardlaw have been hot of late and they were confident at the start of the match and all of our players except second doubles went down a set and I thought we would have an early exit and a quick and painless loss-- but we had some fight in us; I was especially proud of Ian, who battled back and won the second set in a tiebreaker; then first doubles won the second set and third singles followed and we were in a match-- it was tied 1-1 with the other three matches in the third set; Ian and his kid played an amazing match to the death, really fantastic tennis-- they were whipping two-handed backhands back and forth and getting to everything, and though Ian lost there was no shame in it; then our doubles team lost, ending the streak, but Ethan came through at third singles to make the score a respectable 3-2 loss . . . and so we reload for next week, which will be wacky because of stupid AP tests, and we'll see if we can start a new winning streak (and, though we are the smallest school in the White by far, we are still atop the division).
Gametime Decision
After our marathon tennis match in the freezing wind and cold yesterday . . . and after driving a couple kids home, trying to get some food at Coco-- which was closed-- we ended up getting burritos at Crazy Burrito in Edison, a little authentic Mexican place, and I got a chorizo burrito and the kids got barbacoa-- and when we got home, at 8 PM-- so five hours from when we left the high school parking lot-- Alex and I noticed that Ian's styrofoam burrito contained had the word "goat" written on it, but rather than tell him he was eating goat (and facing the possibility that he wouldn't want to eat it, though he was cold and hungry) we kept the information to ourselves, and he wolfed down the goat without pause (I told him today and he didn't seem concerned and then we checked the menu and apparently Alex ate goat as well).
A Close One
Away match today at JFK High School in Iselin and things did not start well--our line-up was something of a mess, with a couple kids at a math competition and a couple kids just in from Georgia (DECA trip) and then our van driver took a wrong turn . . . onto the Garden State Parkway and we took a detour over the Driscoll Bridge-- but we made it on time and it was cold and very very windy and we had to get started right away and-- aside from second doubles-- we went down in all our matches; soon enough, second doubles won handily and first doubles looked to be doing well (but Boyang was very tired from the trip) but our singles players were struggling; Ethan was down a set, Ian was playing great but faced the best player in the White Division-- he was 12 - 0-- and Alex was nursing a strained hamstring and struggling; he ended up losing the first set, but then winning the second set in a tiebreaker; the same thing happened to Ethan the freshman at third singles-- then our first doubles team collapsed and lost, and there seemed to be some cheating from the opposition so the coaches had to watch-- and Alex gutted it out-- once again-- and he clobbered his kid in the third set (he basically got the kid to give up) and the match was tied 2-2 and it all came down to Ethan in a third set tiebreaker and it went back and forth back and forth in the gusty wind, past the seven point mark, to 8 - 8 and then Ethan won apoint, and-- ahead by one and pumped up beyond belief, instead of hitting his usual dinky spin serve, he tossed the ball ahead of him with a long left arm and clobbered it, and his opponent was able to get a bit of racket on it but no strings and it whipped by him into the fence . . . and there was much rejoicing (and we are 7 - 0 in our division and only have one loss on the books, to a superteam that we though we were scrimmaging but apparently the match does count, but we've got another brutal match on Friday and Alex will most likely be out with a strained hamstring).
Surviving Tuesday
Tuesday is my least favorite day of the week-- no fresh Monday energy and no end to the week in sight-- but I survived today's Tuesday without major mishap: while I did slightly screw up my Richard III/War of the Roses chart that I drew on the board (I mistakenly put a line indicating betrothal from Anne Neville, Warwick's daughter, to Henry VI instead of his son Edward . . . shame on me!) this was balanced out by the fact that my van healed itself, and the three check engine lights that were on magically turned themselves off this morning.
Billy Bob = Law?
Goliath is the weirdest, most surreal legal drama I've ever seen-- the first season seemed like it was going to be in the vicinity of Better Call Saul but each season gets more and more obtuse, philosophical, and abstract . . . my whole family loves it, for no good reason other than it's weird and Billy Bob is a lot of fun to watch, but I wonder what an actual lawyer would make of it.
Reversal!
Yesterday, I went biking and rollerblading while my wife went to the gym, then we strolled around Duke Farms and stopped at Flounder Brewing for some beer-- meanwhile, both boys were working for the county, some kind of youth trail-maintenance job-- then today I went to the gym, strolled around with the dog, etc. while Ian worked for a lady in town, smoothing out a stone driveway, and then both boys put on their zebra-stripes and went to referee flag football . . . it's a little disconcerting, it almost feels like early retirement.
Keeping On Keeping On
I worked a full day today, and I mean a full day-- not one minute off-- I covered a class and had a duty and finished Henry IV and started Hamlet . . . and then I raced home to prepare for what I believed was going to be a disastrous tennis match-- we were playing Edison, a huge school with a decent tennis program, and we were missing three starters-- Boyang and Jakob were on the DECA trip and Sapir was still in Italy-- but, as we know from Henry V:
"The fewer men, the greater share of honor"
and so our very depleted team took to the courts at Johnson Park and quickly fell behind; Ian was playing an athletic pusher at first singles and he couldn't figure him out; Alex was playing a hard-hitting second singles player who was nailing every shot; Ethan the freshman was playing an experienced senior at third singles; then our first doubles lost the first set in a tie-breaker, Alex got slaughtered in the first set; Ian was having a terrible time; Ethan was down but our wacky second doubles team came through and won a set; Alex decided he could run his kid to death-- not a fun way to play but a possibility-- Ethan battled back, and our first doubles won the second set . . . and then pretty much everything went our way (although it wasn't Ian's day, he couldn't figure out how to beat his kid) but everyone else battled back and won, so we managed a 4-1 victory in a match I thought was a throwaway loss, and it was all gutsy pressure-filled come-from-behind wins . . . really awesome, and after Alex won the second set in a tiebreaker and then-- with a strained hamstring-- basically ran his kid until he couldn't run any more-- he finished up, victorious, and his girlfriend Izzy did a little proposal poster with tennis puns on it (and some cupcakes that looked liked tennis balls) and it was an epic and excellent Friday afternoon, and-- in David vs. Goliath fashion-- a great win over a Group IV school . . . so we're now 6 - 0 and hanging on for dear life until everyone gets back from their various trips.
AITA?
There's a fun thread on Reddit called "Am I the Asshole?" and if I get motivated, I'll put this situation on there:
this morning a teacher came into my room and said, "Did you cover my class yesterday?"
I confirmed this and he said, "Did you take them for a walk?"
I also confirmed this and he got quite upset and said that now the kids had an excuse for not finishing their work and told me "not to do that again" and I kind of laughed him off, told him we went for a five-minute walk to get some fresh air (during an 82 minute period) and that the kids weren't doing the packet he left for them anyway-- I knew some of the kids in the class and they told me that the teacher was putting up the answer key at 3 PM and the stuff was just for them to study (or not, and they were choosing not) and he said that a kid emailed and said that they went for a walk and didn't have time to finish and I advised the teacher to tell that kid to screw off, as the five minute walk certainly didn't impede anyone from finishing their work but none of this seemed to make sense to him (and I believe we're encouraged to give the kids a short break in the block schedule because classes are insanely long) and while I did not take this teacher or his concerns and demands seriously, perhaps I am the asshole.
Some Real Hard Sci-fi
Tochi Onyebuchi's sci-fi novel Goliath is dense, myriad, multidimensional, Biblical, and socially relevant; it is written as a sequence of vignettes, interspersed with articles and journals and first person accounts-- it's not easy reading and I wish the font was bigger but it tackles a dystopian ecologically devastated earth from the perspective of minorities in a way I've never read before, so while it certainly wasn't as fun as The Expanse novels, it's a more profound look at what's going to happen to those left behind.
Is It Spring Yet?
Chilly match this morning in South Plainfield but I had the bright idea of moving the start time from 9 AM to 10 AM-- which didn't help a bit-- but we managed another 3-2 win . . . I don't think there are going to be any easy matches this season in the White Division; Alex struggled with my racket (he cracked his last week) but Ian had a nice win at first singles, though his leg started bothering him at the very end of the match; they only had four courts and we won three of the four so second doubles played tiebreaker sets (10 points) and though our guys lost, I think in a real match they would have won, so that bodes well for next time . . . anyway, we remain undefeated, though we have a pending loss when we finish the Metuchen match where Ian was hurt, but DECA is looming.
TV is Good When You are Sore
My core is still sore from the yoga class yesterday-- so I'm doing lots of TV . . . as it is the last days of my Spring Break; Cat and I are binging Mare of Easttown-- I shouldn't complain about a sore core after watching that show, so many tragedies and Kate Winslet is so good at portraying them; we are watching the trippy third season of Goliath as a family; I am watching old Atlanta episodes with Ian, and I watched the new Atlanta episode with Alex.
Dogs Are Smart (People Too)
This morning, when Lola and I arrived home from our morning constitutional, I had forgotten that we left through the back and so the front door was still locked; normally I don't realize this error until I've undone her leash and I say "backyard!" and she runs around the house to the backyard, but this morning, when she heard me pull the front door and it didn't open, she ran around to the backyard before I even told her to-- pretty clever for someone who can't discern her reflection from another dog-- and I was pretty smart this morning, too-- I went to an hour yoga/pilates class with my wife and I learned that not only do I need to get more flexible but also that my core ain't up to snuff either (and I also learned that when you spend two hours at the gym and then get lost going to the bagel place afterward, that though you think you can eat an everything bagel with cream cheese and a biali and egg sandwich, that's really not possible).
Oof
Overserved myself last night-- we began pub night at the Beamsdorfer, looking at some oil paintings of the Raritan done by Sleepy Dan's friend when she stayed at his house for a month-- and there were drinks and wine and appetizers, and there was a free keg for all the friends of Erik P. at Pino's but, unfortunately, the beer was some kind of delicious super-strong Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale (8.2%) and it did me in (but not before we did a bunch of one-legged balancing tricks, to the chagrin of the bartenders-- old people shouldn't get that wound up.
The First Rule About First Singles . . .
My son Ian had the match of his life Tuesday, got hurt Wednesday, and got to sit out and watch his brother play first singles Thursday . . . and when his brother got slaughtered by a very nice excellent player, Ian got to say: " you see what I have to deal with at first singles?"
A Win and a Loss
Despite a wacky line-up, we cruised to an easy 4-1 victory over Spotswood, and we remain undefeated-- Boyang had to play doubles because of his gimpy leg and Ian had to bow out of a great first singles match because he pulled something behind his calf; he had battled back against an excellent player, using the moonball as a frustrating tactic, and was ahead in the tiebreaker when he pulled the muscle . . . it's a long season and we had the match wrapped up, so he wisely stopped playing-- last season, Ian beat this kid twice, but both were close matches and ended with the Spotswood kid bowing out due to injury-- and we're supposed to have another match tomorrow and we are banged up and missing players-- so I am doing the rain dance and hoping for an Easter resurrection of all my players.
Still Undefeated! But Defeated at Scheduling . . .
Holy cow . . . no one told me about the insane scheduling that's involved with tennis-- tennis players are involved with EVERYTHING . . . DECA trips and concert choir and robotics and orchestra and Environmental Club and internships-- we're piecing a team together each and every match (until after this weird separated Spring Breaks . . . when all the schools have different Spring Breaks, then no one has a Spring Break) but we salvaged a big win today over rival Wardlaw-Hartridge (who beat us twice last year) and both our doubles teams won (and Sapir and Michael won quickly enough that Sapir could make his orthodontist appointment! a great moment in sports) and Boyang cramped up again but I used this fact to motivate our second doubles team-- I told them they had to win quickly because that would cement our victory and we could pull Boyang off the court-- and they did it!-- and Ian played the match of his life at first singles and beat an excellent player 6-3, 6-4 . . . the highest rated player he's ever beaten and so now we are 2-0 but we've got a long couple weeks ahead of us and we're never going to be at full strength (and I think Boyang is going to have to play doubles tomorrow because of his leg).
Weird Spring Break
I am on Spring Break this week, but my wife and kids have school (they don't have Spring Break until next week) and we still have tennis practice and matches, so I can't do anything major; once everyone clears out, it's just me and the dog at home during the day-- I took her to the dog park in the morning and chatted with the morning dog park crowd, then I went to the gym, and then I screwed around, did the Quordle and the Wordle and all that, did the dishes and the laundry, recorded some music, took a nap, but then I had to run tennis practice because our match got canceled (but we have three more matches this week) and so I watched a bunch of tennis videos to prepare for that (we played some really fun mini-games) and now I'm back home, enjoying a beer and cooking dinner, with very little stress because I don't have work tomorrow but it is odd to be the only one in the house-- besides the dog-- that isn't worried about work (and I did have some added stress when I listened to Joe Rogan interviewing David Mamet . . . while I love Glengarry Glenross, that guy is very angry for a well-to-do old man).
Rocks Are Heavy
It's more fun to pilfer one rock at a time from the park, then it is to wheelbarrow a bunch of free rocks in a pile by the public works building all the way back up the hill to my house.
Atlanta = Black Seinfeld
When Donald Glover's brainchild Atlanta isn't being totally weird (like the recent Black Mirror reparations episode) it reminds me of Seinfeld:
Darius is, of course, Kramer-- and the episode about the Steve McQueen poster where Earn trades his cell phone at a pawn shop and enters the world of Darius and the dogs is a perfect example of this;
Earn is George-- poor, jobless, a mess with women, looking for purpose, and angry at the systems of the world;
Alfred (Paper Boi) is Jerry, the straight-man performer who usually has the most common sense of the bunch;
Van is Elaine-- a tough candid beautiful broad with an entangled past with one of the main characters, but no solid relationship with any of them and her own aspirations;
it's one of my all-time favorite shows, up there with Curb and Seinfeld and The Wire and The Shield, just awesome . . . don't miss it.
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.
The Nineties . . . Whatever
If you came of age in the 1990s then it really helps to read a book about all the stuff you didn't pay attention to . . . all the stuff you didn't bother to read about or see on TV or develop opinions on because you were snowboarding or rock-climbing or going to Lollapalooza or whatever; Chuck Klosterman wrote this book and whether you grew up in the 90s or just want to understand Generation X, I recommend you read it; I was born in 1970, so my first decade as an adult happened in the 1990s . . . and I did not vote in a presidential election-- why bother when all politicians were sell-outs?-- and there was nothing worse in the 90s than to be a sell-out . . . although Klosterman points out for every Kurt Cobain there was a Garth Brooks . . . I actually told my first department head, when she was making some sort of workplace demand, that the only reason I came to work was to earn money so I could go on snowboarding trips (she found this amusing) and Klosterman reminds us that this was the last time period when it was fine to NOT know stuff-- there was no magical device on which you could look everything up and also look up every take and opinion and spin about that thing-- we would get into the same argument time after time when my friends were all drinking: did peanuts grow underground or above ground? and then we'd look it up and then we'd forget and argue about it again . . . Klosterman revisits the big stuff-- Waco and Tupac and Tarantino and Jordan-- and lots of fun little things that you may or may not remember (Liz Phair, The Day After Tomorrow novel, Biosphere 2, tons of TV and music and movies, etc) and he finishes with the Bush/Gore election and how no one thought it mattered as it happened-- the two guys were SO similar-- but then in the ensuing chaos and resultant Supreme Court decisions-- which happened along party lines-- lines were drawn and sides formed, and then he has a cool set piece: he runs through all the front pages of newspapers on 9/10/2001 and they are so various: from missile defense to KFC's strategy in China and he reminds us that the world was still big and various and unknowable but the nice thing was America was on top and the economy was humming and then the next day nineteen men with boxcutters passed through airport security and everything changed and the complacent, whatever vibe of the 90s collapsed with the Twin Towers.
Dave Breaks the Rule
As many of you know, I am generally an advocate of the Golden Rule of Food Hygiene:
Never leave perishable food out for more than 2 hours
but today after school, I broke the rule . . . once again, Ian forgot to eat the hardboiled egg that my wife made (and peeled) for him this morning and I hadn't eaten lunch, so when I saw it on the counter I grabbed it and inhaled it (so quickly that I got the hiccups) and while I did some research and you should NOT eat peeled boiled eggs that are left out in the danger zone (between 40°F and 140°F) but so far so good, I'm writing this sentence, I'm not in intestinal distress, and I will probably follow the rules in the future.
A Good Start
It's always nice to start the season with a win, especially if it's your first win ever as a varsity tennis coach, so I was especially appreciative of the effort the tennis team put in today against a very tough JFK squad; as usual, it all came down to Boyang, in the third set, and he was cramping in both legs-- but he came through in the clutch and won 6-4, giving us a three to two win on a cold day . . . which is where spring sports in New Jersey always begins-- and it always ends when it's too hot and humid to hold onto the racket.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Do Again
We met some friends at Flounder Brewing Company in Hillsborough yesterday, and the beer was great (especially the Fred IPA, the Brown Ale, and the Black Emerald) and the atmosphere was even better-- the tasting room is rustic, all wood and big rough-hewn beams, and there are several nice patios and dogs are allowed-- eventually, a bluegrass-style band started playing and it was hard to tell you were in central Jersey (unless you listened to the conversation) and then, once we had sampled the beers, we wandered ten yards over to Bellemara Distillery and the drinks they made from their single malt gin and single malt "spirit" were, incomprehensibly, even better than the beer next door . . . I had a Herbaceous, which had Thai Basil, Star Anise, Lime, Jalapeño, Lemongrass Syrup, and their single malt gin-- yikes it was good-- so we will be returning to this little complex on the way to the Sourlands, it's scenic, only twenty-five minutes from Highland Park, and feels like a little vacation.
Word in One!
I know nothing is more boring than hearing a grown man's Wordle journey BUT . . . this morning I awoke and a new opening world popped into my head-- a very Dave word, as Zman said . . . a word that we often use in Creative Writing, a word made famous by this website-- and it turned out that this rather odd word was THE word of the day . . . which is actually kind of sad because I didn't get to play Wordle, really . . . my wife said I should play the lottery but I think I SHOULDN'T play the lottery because all my luck is used up for the day.
Worth the Spot
Stacey drove me to the library today during school so I didn't have to give up my pole-position parking spot (I need to exit the school in a hurry because I coach tennis in my hometown) and then we stopped at Wawa and I bought her a well-deserved coffee . . . but she also insisted that I buy a jumbo-sized bag of Sour Patch Kids for the English Office, which I did . . . and I ate a bunch of them and realized that though they are delicious, there's no difference in flavor between the different colors-- and we verified this with a Cunningham blind taste test-- and my pole-position spot worked and I got out of the school in a hurry and made it on time for the van-ride to the match in Edison and wow was it cold and then it rained and then it dried and we got started and then it rained again and we got postponed.
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