On the job, I’m a model of concentration. For the most part what I do is interesting, if only to me. The work involves staring for long periods at chromatic, pulsating lights and trying not to convulse, or pass out.  My concentration is like that of a three-year old repeatedly smacking a cinder block with a butter knife. Intense, purposeful, not useful to society at large. When the sun sets on each day of work (which I wouldn’t realize, because we don’t have windows in the basement), my mind wanders. Not necessarily to the novel I’ve been bragging about not working on, or family activities about to take place. Nope. My automatic go-to daydream, my raison d’Walter Mitty, starts with the Waltons. More specifically, what would the Waltons do if you took them out of the Great Depression and plunked the entire shoeless family down in Mid-town Manhattan. 

The Waltons was a 1970’s TV show depicting the life and hard times of a rural Virginia family during the Depression and World War II.  The show was the creation of Earl Hamner Jr., the man also responsible for the 1963 Henry Fonda cinematic chestnut, Spencer’s Mountain. Basically, the Walton clan couldn’t get out tragedy’s way and weekly would experience a house fire, barn fire, general store fire, mattress fire, or some combination of all of the above along with the family cow spontaneously combusting like a Spinal Tap drummer. My mind, like aggravated gelatine, constantly goes back to “What would the Waltons think?” Sometimes at work, griping about DOS programs, I’ll say to myself “Well, at least this software would blow John Boy’s mind.” Okay, my thoughts wander a little at work.  You can’t just apply this time machine game to any old TV show. Every “What would they have done on Little House on the Prairie?” question, for instance, ends up with Nelly Olson being mowed down by a car. I try not to play this game very often, resting in the knowledge that they’d end up like everybody else. Wearing shoes and constantly on Facebook saying good night to each other.

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#1970's TV #Earl Hamner Jr. #John Boy #Little House on the Prairie #Nelly Olson #Spinal Tap Drummers #The Waltons #Walter Mitty

Today the doctor told me that I can start a regular running program again. This announcement hit in much the same way that the news of pitchers and catchers reporting to baseball training camps does each winter. I looked out the window at the wind blowing snow through the tree branches and clucked “Reeeaaallly?” It didn’t take long to start to embrace the idea of running. The current temperature may be a whopping 7° degrees, but in my mind it’s always summer and I’m perpetually careening across people’s lawns with my tongue hanging out. On some those occasions I’m actually running, as well.  Heading back to work, I was in pretty good spirits. Never mind the weather, I was planning core strengthening and treadmill workouts. I basically returned to work from the doctor’s office with the car travelling sideways, because of the wind, but…whoo hoo, running! The car has a nifty feature in which the back hatch doesn’t close. In high wind the hatch acts as a sail and propels the car in unusual directions. Merrily I sailed to work, clouds of exhaust fumes making snowflakes dance around the car. The magic of winter in Michigan mixed with the early stages of asphyxia.

Returning to work was a good Up-With-People training for my not-always positive self. The furnace that heats our kitchen and offices had blown the last of its furnace-y cache of good will and left the staff cold. Even Blodgett ovens aren’t enough to heat a subterranean hash house during the single digit days of January. I, like most of my ancestors before me, dress for work in the traditional garb of the ancient clan of Poindexter. This means that even if the outdoor temperature is in the low nothings, I wear a short-sleeved, pocketed dress shirt. That’s okay, ‘cuz their snazzy.  I may freeze at my desk, but it will have been done proudly in the garb of a food service accounts payable nerd. Alas, all of this will one day lead to running. Fresh air, sunshine, freedom. A time when I can ascend the stairwell from my basement office, remove my short-sleeved dress shirt and run. Or at least wallow in the sun. If my predictions are right, this could happen as soon as six months from now. Yippee!

#Postaday January in Michigan postaday Running

 Today is Friday! Halleluiah! Here is a video in which former MST3K actors rip on a movie about killing people in order to make a really swell reality show. Enjoy!

#RiffTrax Hunger Games #The Hunger Games #Youtube Jennifer Lawrence MST3K Mystery Science Theater 3000 RiffTrax

Last night our family made the long anticipated trek into the forest to select the perfect Christmas tree. Well, not so much the forest. We drove over to Home Depot and wandered around the deserted garden department where the trees were unceremoniously stacked according to type and price. The only staff out in the 30 degree chill was a forlorn looking twenty-something year old clerk, sitting on a folding chair staring into space. The seagulls circled above, because no one told them to shut their beaks and find another place to paint with poo. In the end, we found a Scotch Pine that was reminiscent of our family tree (leaning over in a  lazy way, not enough branches). The forlorn girl perked up and helped us load the tree into our waiting Chrysler Partsmobile. I started to perk up myself, thinking that this had gone better than holiday decorating forays when I was a kid.

When I was 11, my parents decided we needed to invest in a new tree. We were  solidly fake tree Democrats in those days. Mom and Dad had me get the Sears catalog and phoned in for a respectable fake shrub. When we got to Sears receiving, the clerk brought us the wrong tree. An electrified Blue Spruce. Gorgeous, according to the package photo. When I tried to protest, dad and mom simultaneously elbowed me in the stomach. They weren’t fessing up. We owned no vehicle, and Dad knew we couldn’t put the tree on top of a cab. We ended up lugging the boxed tree onto a city bus. If it wasn’t humbling enough to put the tree on the wheelchair lift, I learned humility by having to pay an extra .50 ¢ tree fare. Embarrassing, or not, there’s no tree like the one in my folks living room (that they never paid full price for).

#Christmas #Christmas Trees #Home Depot #Scotch Pine #Sears #Sears Catalog

Life in a parallel universe is proving to be interesting. The only reason I say this is because my daughter is excited to head back to school on the Tuesday after Labor Day. This excitement could only exist in some alternate reality. The world I know, the real world, would normally contain no such eagerness to begin the school year. The idea of being legally required to attend an eight-hour per day, unpaid desk job never appealed to me. When I was ten, there were tons of projects I felt had to be done, and none of them involved going to sit with other pointy headed kids in a drafty, vomit scented building, eating bologna sandwiches. That year I went so far as to fail a grade. The windows in my classroom  faced an Oldsmobile assembly plant, and I felt it was a better use of my time to figure out how to make crappy, inefficient cars.

I am glad and actually relieved that my child has not inherited my spirit of flunkitude and has a desire to learn through the school process. None of her father’s poor scholastic traits have manifested themselves in her DNA. School was divided into two distinct eras for me: B.G. (Before Girls) and W.N.? (What Now?). During the B.G. years, I spent time learning to break  things. B.G. was the instructive part of school, because I learned the art of completely implausible denial. If, for instance, the jungle gym just happened to fall apart or the trash dumpsters rolled into traffic there wasn’t even any point in trying to deny it. I’d Make up a story involving aliens, gorillas and Margaret Thatcher and then go mute. The What Now? years were more difficult. I was too busy trying to figure out the nature of women to concentrate, let alone break anything. By college, a third era of enlightenment opened up and I stopped trying to figure out women, or destroy objects with just the power of my mind. I  briefly studied. Why Not? Oldsmobile had quit production and I was out of distractions.

#Back To School 2012 #Elementary School #Oldsmobile #Oldsmobile Assembly Plant Lansing Michigan #School

The tiny, non-starter irritations in life are always the ones I get stuck on. The other morning, I awoke and turned on the TV in time to see some unctuous spokes-models wandering through a wheat field touting the virtues of a brand of breakfast cereal. The beautiful people rattled and prattled for thirty seconds about this wonderful, natural sort of cereal. The food is supposedly natural because it’s shaped like something once found in nature and healthy because of some purported relationship with the earth. Blah, Blah, Blah. Never mind that the product is doused in malt syrup and makes its own gravy when covered in milk. The commercials used to employ a preachy testimonial from some world-famous chef, but models meandering through wheat fields dreamily expounding on the blessings of cereal must have seemed more relatable to advertising executives. Poor, hunky, famous chef. He’s probably gone back to slinging oatmeal in a hotel dungeon somewhere.

There isn’t much natural about breakfast cereal. If there was, we’d all be eating bowls of fertilizer (“All the best to you each morning!”). Rice grains impregnated with superheated air, rolled oats covered in sugar and stuck together with dyed and dried cranberries. I actually enjoy the completely unnatural. Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch. At least when I eat PBCC, I know that it’s not even an imitation of real food, the same as I know that it hasn’t travelled with actual pirates.

Arrr…we’ll forgo the booty and take the peanut butter crap food with us. Sure beats cow manure…

I’d love to make a new kind of cereal that embodies the all-American breakfast. Coffee, cigarettes and resentment. The new breakfast treat might be called Smoldering Java Anger Flakes. The advertising would feature combat boot wearing lunchroom cooks wandering through Walmart shouting the virtues of eating compost. Every box would feature a hairnet at the bottom as a sort of prize. You know, I might change course and start eating some of that unctuous, whole grain cereal. It might regenerate the brain cells killed off by years of Cap’n Crunch.

#Postaday Breakfast Foods Curtis Stone Great Grains Preachy Advertisements Models Selling Cereal Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch postaday Sugared Cereals

I was out buying bed sheets tonight. To you this might seem ultra trivial and mundane, but in my case it always becomes an exercise in an area of domestic life I want no part of. My bedding requirements are simple and are as follows:

1. Is there a bed? No? I’ve slept on floors, couches, beaches, friend’s kitchens, acquaintances doorsteps. I’m glad for the bed, but it isn’t a deal breaker.
2. What is sleeping with me, or in my vicinity? Dogs are okay, but seeing-eye ponies, domesticated rodents and undomesticated persons (or rodents) are deal breakers.

There are things about buying sheets that I get, but don’t want to get into. Thread count seems to be a big deal. Suddenly I have to become Count Threadula, Emperor of Bedding in order to buy sheets. I’m in the store, squinting to see if I can count the threads. “There’s one! Wah ha ha! One thread!” I get distracted too easily to buy home products, anyway. A classic Z.Z. Top song came on over the store’s p.a. system and I stopped counting threads and listened more carefully than I’d ever to what my wife had explained to me about sheets. Cheap Sunglasses started to play and all thoughts of domestic tranquility fled my slipping mind. Instead, I began to envision a summer project. Each June I give in to the urge to tackle  improvement (my own, or someone else’s). This year, instead of losing weight, or cutting my cholesterol,  I decided while  Sunglasses was rockin’  that I’d grow an awesome beard like the one Z.Z. Top’s Billy Gibbons wears. Sure it’ll be tough to hide the beard around the office. Maybe if I go all out for the boogie and blues, the beard will just look less crazy and more a natural extension of whatever personality is trying to get out of me. Oh, and the sheets? I bought black. Rock, roll and common sense, because they hide dirt in their many black threads.

#Billy Gibbons #High Thread Count Sheets #Self Improvement #Z.Z. Top

One of the parts about parenting that I never really get used to is the amount of structure required in children’s lives. My pre-teenage daughter is starting a second week of musical theatre camp tomorrow, an activity that follows a summer of other meaningful childhood activity. This is the case with many of my friends kids. We pay to keep them on the road, year-round, like a worn out rock band. This may have been common when I was a kid, but I have no recollection of much wholesome activity. I was a fairly unsophisticated kid. My friends and I would go outdoors and play something called “Funny People” for hours on end. The object of the game was…well there wasn’t an object, because the game was just stupid. One participant would punch the other.  The puncher would fall down and writhe on the ground while the punchee would stand and laugh, while showing no effects of having been hit. There were several aspects of Funny People that puzzle me to this day:

1. Parents and educators would encourage us to go outdoors and punch each other in the head (“Why don’t you go find your friends and punch each other in the head?”)
2. For all of the blows to the skull, many of us managed to grow into responsible, caring adults. There are those in every group of friends who wind up in jail, or with uncontrollable twitching, I imagine. I’d speculate more, but my left leg keeps independently kicking the right one.

My parents would tire of all the whining about skull fractures toward mid-summer and shell out $15 dollars to send me for a week at sleep-away camp. This was about as structured as life got, because my friends and I would spend our daylight hours making wallets and license plates in a makeshift compound, deep in the north woods of Michigan. My favorite project was making knife holsters. What 8-year old boy doesn’t want a carrier for his homemade shank? Each morning started with some old geezer sidling up to me in the chow line, asking “der yer warnt ah wiskerr ruub?” My love of the marathon began right there, because I learned to run from unshaven camp geezers. Yeah, now that I’ve purged those memories, maybe driving my child around to her sophisticated activities is a good thing. Let me go get my camp wallet so I can pay whatever amount structure requires.

#Childhood Memories #Having Kids Changes Everything #Sleep Away Camp #Sophistication of Modern Childhood #Structured Kids Activities #What a Difference Having Children Makes

The nice thing about losing one’s mind (and there are nice things. I’m not a glass half empty person, preferring to drink straight from the bottle) is that you can function in society for quite a while before anybody comments on the situation. My mind started playing tricks last week and I began to hear phrases in the night coming from the kitchen. I’d wake in the wee hours of the morning (so-called, because that’s when middle-aged men have to get up and go) and hear phrases uttered from across the house.  Indecipherable mutterings arising for no reason. Only after a few days of hearing  voices did I realize  the voice was that of a Happy Meal give-away toy and that I’d never find the culprit. The offending toy would keep jabbering until the battery went dead. It hasn’t yet.

My 9-year-old daughter has mostly moved past playing with toys, but she still accumulates fast-food freebies with disturbing frequency. Talking things that reinforce nonsensical slogans and jargon for no good reason. For every one that does something interesting (like burp on command, or sit quietly and stare into space) there are dozens that shout stupid drivel. Once we even got a Simon Cowell talking bauble that I had to run over with a car in order to silence. I’m not a hater, and thrive on the absurd, but I draw the line at talking toys. As a teenage McDonald’s employee I used to deep fry them in batches. Needless to say, my career under the arches was brief. Personal kindness and patience shouldn’t extend to talking toys.

I’ve pinpointed the location of the nightly jabbering toy and have been informed by my family that it’s a zebra, inexplicably voiced by Chris Rock. Sorry, I’d rather be crazy.

#Chris Rock #Happy Meal Toys #McDonalds #Simon Cowell

A friend of mine recently spent 4 hours on hold with the phone company. The wait time would have been longer, but the gentleman’s head spontaneously combusted when a call center representative came on the line and asked if he was in any way dissatisfied with the level of service received. Nothing left but smoke and receiver. The phone company is fine with this. They have nothing to lose. Customers are still on hold who’ve been waiting since the Bell System was founded in 1878. Each knows that the sweet heavenly repose of death  awaits  as soon as they get that pesky .3¢ overcharge off the bill. “Today’s expected wait time is between 3 minutes and blehhhhhh.”

Verizon will never be the phone company and it’s pretty safe to say that Magic Jack won’t own that title any time soon. No, the phone company will always be that conglomeration of companies  responsible for preserving antiquities, AT&T. They’ll provide cellular phone service as long as the device is wired to a building. AT&T is a pioneer of successful paperless billing, provided that you remember what you owe and then take a steam engine to the nearest Bell office. To be fair,  AT&T  offers an automated menu to guide callers through problems during wait times. Actually, the menu is just a recording of my Uncle Frank.  Most of the programmed responses sound just like my relatives enjoying fried green tomatoes on a summer evening. “Hmmm…Seems like you’ve called  because you have a problem? Is that correct?” “You’ve called using a telephone today. Do I have that right?” “I think that  I’ve identified the problem. Before I can fix the issue  I’ll need you to tell me what you’re wearing.” I’d tell Frank that I like the automated help, but he’s on hold with the phone company.

# Bell System #AT&T #Home Phone Service #Phone Wait Time Nightmares

2 Dreams

I’ve never been a drug user. The strongest thing I imbibed regularly was Pepsi. Last year my neurologist (what a weird thing to be able to refer to a neurologist as one’s own. “Oh, yeah. That’s my brain guy. We’re tight”) prescribed a migraine preventative drug that took me on a wicked trip. The medication really didn’t impact the frequency or severity of headaches I experienced, but I was too tripped out to notice. I started to have dreams. The dreams started out in a good place.  Walmart, actually. For two months I spent each night in a series of dreams I named “Celebrity Walmart Trip.” Each night, I’d stroll the isles of our local super-store with a famous person. Night one was Walmart with Kenny Rogers (the former Tiger’s pitcher, not The Gambler).  I asked about what was on his hand during the ’06 World Series. The next night featured quality shopping with William Shatner. He didn’t appreciate being called “Shat” or the fact that I giggled every time I said the word “Shat.” After a month or so, the dreams became markedly weirder. The former Captain Kirk’s head burst into flames on a subsequent somnambulist Walmart visit and the fire consumed me. Fire became a recurring theme in these medication side effect night terrors. I’d be lulled into a conversation with some woman in a bar that could only exist in my dreams (because I like Pepsi) only to be consumed by her hell fire. At least I wouldn’t have to call those women back. Dragons, murderous chickens and devil women gave way after a few months to a sort of garbled terror montage. I stopped the medication eventually and went back to the safety of just living with headaches until another doctor prescribed me some well-behaved, sleep-flame retardant drugs.

A year later, I am having calm dreams of great beauty. I’ve tried to look up their meaning on popular internet dream databases only to find that every dream somehow means that I have a fear of sexual relationships with clowns. The thing that I like about my calm, reassuring dreams is that everyone I’ve ever known comes by for a visit at some point. A nightly talk show of the mind. Sometimes pianos mysteriously fall on friends, but I’d hate to look up the meaning of that on the internet for fear that it goes back to clowns. My dreams have evolved since I was a teenager when all they ever contained was Phoebe Cates or a Camaro. If those dreams ever return, I’ll invite her to the nightly talk show and keep an eye on the sky for pianos.

1 Testosterone

The arrival of Fall makes me weepy and emotionally irresponsible. I muddle through the Michigan weather and wait out the Seasonal Affective Disorder, all the while coming up with creative solutions. On days when the clouds are heavy and the world seems to recede into darkness that won’t fade until the January thaw, I go and stare at the gas station hot dog machine. The glowing light seems to afford my soul peace and tranquility. This doesn’t help with the seasonal weight gain, though. Part of the S.A.D. dilemma is that it causes increased appetite, sleepiness and the need to be on a constant sugar bender. We-ird. I eat and tear up like Sissy the Blogger. Every time someone mentions that the World Series starts tonight and that my beloved Tigers (sniff) are sending Justin Verlander to the mound against Barry Zito, the waterworks start (“Ahhh…get me some marshmallows! This is too much pressure!”).*

Lately I’ve started to take notice of advertisements for supplemental testosterone. For the most part, these seem to be just commercials sponsored by the inadequacy industry. I don’t need no stoopid testosterone! Give me some Turtle Wax and I’ll be fine. I’m a man, and that puts me in a fraternity of men. The fraternity of understanding the onside kick, the infield fly rule and Top Gear. The brotherhood of “If it ain’t broke, let’s break it on purpose.” The boost of testosterone might help with the obnoxious, seasonal emotional jags, though. Not that I can afford it. It’s more than likely that my insurance doesn’t cover hormones, even if my doctor’s chart states “necessitated because dumbbell can’t keep his big boy pants up.” What to do? I guess that I’ll turn to other, more homeopathic maleness supplements. Since we haven’t been to the grocery store in a while, the only items in the house that might do the trick are Vitamin D pills and Ramen noodles. Get my mortar and pestle. It’s time to mix up some mojo.

*After writing this, Justin gave me reason to tear up. I’m going to need a bigger bag of marshmallows.

4 Ichiro

Ichiro Suzuki was traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Yankees this afternoon. To you, this may seem the routine business of modern professional baseball. There has never been anything routine about the very routine-ness that is Ichiro. He’s been a career .322 hitter with the Mariners since 2001, a workhorse of steadfast on base percentage. The very businesslike way he’s fielded his position and gotten on base doesn’t make the Sports Center highlights any more, because we’re used to his excellence. The fact that he finally played a major league season in 2011 not hitting .300 was only worrisome, because he’s Ichiro. I may be a Detroit Tiger homer for life, but Ichiro has been my one baseball infidelity over the years. When the Mariners and Tigers have squared off over the years, I’ve been in the habit of calling my daughter in to watch the TV. “C’mere, because you’re not going to see anyone like this again.”

I bleed Tigers blue and orange. A  Summer’s Eve swilling mo-ron told me last season that I must have just jumped on the band wagon. Sure, except the bandwagon arrived around the time I was a toddler and could just pronounce Wockenfuss. My dad used to prop me next to the old Realistic stereo speakers and I’d sit and listen to Ernie. “Swiiing and a miss” is still rattles around my brain pan. All this having been said, I was an Ichiro fan. Even if he’d played for the White Sox, this would have been so. Tonight he’s batting eighth for the Yankees, which tests even my respect for the great, working man’s all-star. He played for some woefully crummy Seattle teams over the years and I don’t blame Ichiro for wanting to finish with a contender. In all the years Ichiro’s played for bad teams, this is the first I remember him publicly complaining. Hopefully, he finishes on a high note. Ichiro inspires what should be the best qualities in all of us:  hard work, consistency, and presence at the plate.

2 Wrigley

“We turned our back on Cookie for one second…”

A few weeks before the end of the school year I woke my daughter up one morning and told her we were going to see the Detroit Tigers. Who knew that this was such an effective way to get kids up for school? Sitting bolt upright, she asked without a trace of sleepiness

“In Detroit?”

“No,” I answered “At Wrigley.’

“What’s a Wrigley?”

Taking my nine-year old to a ball game was part of my bucket list fatherhood plan. I figured that we’d do fun stuff that every kid should experience before adulthood. Never mind the logistics of taking a little girl into Chicago without the guiding hand of mom.  We checked off quite a few bucket items on this trip. The first thing was learning to ride with drunks on the South Shore line for two hours. We had plenty of conversations the rest of the day about why people shouldn’t drink at 9:00 in the morning (let alone 3 beers before the train departs). Riding the Red Line from State Street to Addison was another lesson. Learn to embrace other people. More importantly, embrace being squashed into some stranger’s boobs (not me. I’m too tall and obvious). A lady asked me on the way down to the subway if I had a back up plan. “Yeah. I’m not going to let go of the child. Same as the original plan.” Learn to enjoy exotic restrooms. Wrigley’s best kept secret is the section 126 First Aid station and it’s locking bathroom.

The experience of going to good old Wrigley Field is lost on my daughter. As it should be. She’ll get the particulars later. I know that she’s was as awed as me by the sight of the field beyond home plate when you first walk through the gate. I don’t believe in baseball cathedrals, but Wrigley’s pretty close. Someday, the Cubs will have won numerous championships under the stellar management of Darwin Barney and the billionaire owners (the Olsen twins) will have the place leveled. She’ll look back and tell the kids how dad dragged her up to see Justin Verlander throw a five hit, two earned run game back in the good old days. A bucket list check-off for any kid, even at my age.