Play it LOUD, Daddy

Last night on the drive home our preschooler had a full-on crying fit... because I wouldn't play "Here and Now" by Letters To Cleo at full volume in the car.

"I like it super loud" was his argument for why I should increase the volume. Which I countered with, "No"--but while still playing it louder than I would listen to, say, NPR.

Then for tonight's drive the iPod played a mix of songs that I kept at a very modest volume... until he decided he wanted Grant Lee Buffalo's "Truly, Truly" turned up--not that he'd ever heard that before; it may simply have been what came on at the moment he wanted the music louder in general. And the volume stayed up for... the Carpenters' version of "Reason To Believe". When he wanted "super loud" I said, "How about semi-super loud?" That distracted him as he then had to ask what that meant.

Then to close our commute he requested that we listen to the Bauhaus cover of "Ziggy Stardust" twice in a row. That he accepted at just normal volume--which, again, was louder than I'd do for NPR. Because Ziggy played.. gui-tar.

Knock knock

Actual knock-knock joke our preschooler told at dinner a couple weeks ago (with our responses):

Knock-knock
(Who's there?)

Banana
(Banana who?)

Knock-knock
(Who's there?)

Banana
(Banana who?)

Knock-knock
(Who's there?)

Pickle
(Pickle who?)

Pickle you glad I didn't say "Banana"! [Cackles with laughter]

~

Happy National Pickle Day.

Exactly how were we *saving* daylight?

If since March 11 we've been "saving" daylight then conceivably we should have a seven-month stockpile from which we could redeem some of that saved-up daylight and not have it be so dark when we leave work tomorrow.

"Daylight Saving Time" my ass; it was Daylight Having Time and we squandered it during summer when there was plenty of daylight already.

(Clearly linguists were not consulted when the policy was named.)

A couple moments with my son

Tonight after I put our son in bed and turned out the light he said, "Let's talk about our day, Daddy." And so I asked him about school, and he answered. Then he said (for the first time ever), "How was your day?" And I told him it was fine, which is as much as he needed to know about what it's like to be a grown-up, despite how mature he sounded when asking.

~

Earlier in the evening, without establishing any context, he had talked about how "my friends say 'poo' which has an 'o' on the end, but 'poop' has a 'p' on the end" and he was quite certain he was right and they were saying it wrong, and his pedantry was too cute for me to mention either variant is acceptable. Nor did I elaborate on how either is just what grown-ups say around young children to avoid saying words they don't want to have to explain to the teachers.

But whatever elicited his remark it surely revolved around how either "poo" or "poop" is something that is hilarious in preschool. And I'm glad he's not growing up too fast to stop enjoying that.

Karma has no room in LA traffic

(My descent into turning into my father is complete. I'm going to talk about how long it took to get somewhere.)

Setting the stage: For my typical morning commute to work I take mostly side streets, and the key point is where I must cross a set of tracks for a light-rail line (as there are only a limited number of crossing points). Recently construction on the closest large boulevard has closed that and caused much more traffic to the smaller two-lane street I use.

At the intersection just before the tracks there is the street that proceeds straight north to the tracks and a perpendicular street where cars coming east turn left or cars coming west turn right to get on to the aforementioned northbound street. But with all the extra traffic cars back up in all three directions, because not only can the tracks be blocked when trains go by but just on the far side of the tracks is another intersection with a traffic light. So that light turns red, the northbound street backs up all the way to the previous intersection, leaving no room for more cars to proceed through at that one.

At least they shouldn't. But that doesn't stop some oblivious or inconsiderate drivers from pulling into the intersection even though there isn't room on the other side, thereby blocking the intersection when the light changes and the westbound cars (that aren't turning) cannot go.

I try not to be such an person, which seems like should be karmically good.

Dino jingle

While reading a book about dinosaurs to our preschooler last night we came upon Ceratosaurus, and he said, "It sounds like 'Cerritos'." And I agreed that it did somewhat resemble the name of that Southern California town.

Then he sang the "Yes... Cerritos Auto Square--dot com!" jingle from the commercial for the car dealers, which presumably he'd heard on the radio while riding with Mommy.

This is why I only listen to the iPod or NPR when I'm driving in the car with him. Kids are sponges.

Are you ready (to not watch) some football?

With the NFL season starting tonight, I wanted to state for the record:
Even though I've watched football since childhood but I will not be watching any games this season.

And it is because of the owners aligning themselves with Trump regarding the kneeling protest (and mandating those on the field must stand during the anthem). Giving that moron even an ostensible victory was too much.

I concede the CTE situation should have made it unwatchable already, but this proved the last straw.

That said, I don't think less of those who do continue watch or consider them inherently pro-Trump or against the protest by doing so. This is merely what I'm choosing to do (or not, as it were). 

When you don't get your sleeping child an In-N-Out milkshake

Last weekend while running errands our preschooler (unsurprisingly) fell asleep in his car seat. He'd eaten many snacks beforehand so when my wife and I were hungry we went through the In-N-Out drive-thru (to allow him to keep sleeping while we ate in the car) without worrying about getting him something.

Then over an hour after we left there (and had gone to two other destinations, where I stayed in the parked car with him while my wife ran into the stores) he awoke in the back seat... and noticed the empty milkshake cup in the cupholder with the chocolate and vanilla residue showing through the lid.

He then started saying he wanted a milkshake, over and over. And I kept explaining we were no longer near where they made the milkshakes. And he kept saying he wanted one. And I kept explaining. And he kept saying he wanted one.

Finally, with his lip pouting so far out one could rest objects on it, he muttered, "Worst day ever. I don't get a milkshake."

We are really bad parents. We should have disposed of the evidence before he woke up.

~

Epilogue: I gave him a little ice cream bar from the freezer when we got home and then things were fine.

Music in the '50s to the '80s, and the '80s to today: Running to standstill?

Last year U2 toured in honor of the 30th anniversary of their album The Joshua Tree.

I remember 1987 (I was just out of high school) and how much songs from that album dominated rock radio back then. It was almost nauseating, and I was someone who liked their music (but wasn't a huge fan).

I also remember what I thought of songs from thirty years earlier (1957) at that time (1987). I'd listened to plenty of the oldies station in my younger days to be familiar with the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" or the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" or Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" (I could go on). I liked all that music as well, but being from more than a decade before I was born it did seem... old. Again, it was very good, but... old.

Here's the thing: It is now just a little over the same amount of time passed since 1987 as had passed from 1957 to 1987. However, when I think about the music of 1987 now, it doesn't seem old. Intellectually I grasp that it is, but it doesn't seem old in the way 1957's music seemed in 1987--even though that same oldies station now plays mostly songs from the '80s (and wouldn't consider playing anything from the '50s).

Raising a Dodger fan

The other morning our son changed out of the shirt I'd picked out (and dressed him in), taking it off and choosing instead a Dodgers shirt instead.

I asked him if he remembered the last time he wore it, and he replied "When we went to the Dodger game." (We took him to his first professional baseball game back on Father's Day.)

I asked him if he remembered who won. He said, "The Dodgers?" (It is unsurprising that he didn't recall the outcome, given it was more about all the stuff he got to eat and chanting "Let's go, Dodgers!" But being only a preschooler the fact he made it through the entire game was remarkable.)

I had to say, "No, it was the Giants." He furrowed his face and said, "I only want the Dodgers to win."

Then Wednesday night when we got home another Dodger game against the Giants was about to start on TV. When he saw the shots of the players on both teams he asked who was the "grey team" (going on the color of the road uniforms). I answered it was the Giants, reminding him it was the team the Dodgers played when we went to the game.

Unprompted, he said, "The Giants are a sack of poop. I want them to lose all the time."

As a parent, I know in general I should dissuade that sort of "sack of poop" sentiment, but in this case I allowed it.

~

It's also worth noting the Dodgers won that Wednesday game over the Giants in extra innings.

Regarding throwing your hands in the air like you don't care

Attention DJs and MCs of the world: When I throw my hands in the air these days it is generally because I am concerned with something (often in a frustrated manner), so your directions to do so to connote insouciance are, more often than not, unheeded.

But party on, those who can.

Word up.

Fucking shit up and fucking up shit

Ostensibly, to "fuck shit up" and to "fuck up shit" are interchangeable, but idiomatically it seems the former is intentional and the latter inadvertent.

It seems the current occupant of the Oval Office's policies seek the former while his legal team achieve the latter.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man does some things sort of like a spider can

Recently I saw a time-lapse video of a spider building a web, and thought:

Spider-Man really should shoot webs out of his butt to better replicate what actual spiders do. And have a healthy appetite for insects.

Obviously that's a more educational than entertaining take on the character, but eventually they'll run out of alternative reboot ideas, so feel free to run with that, Sony.

Our purple nation

When people in the media refer to "purple states"—those where the populace falls between being mostly a (conservative) "red" state or mostly a (liberal) "blue" state, that clearly is thinking in terms of dyes, where red and blue make purple.

However, on the spectrum of light waves, obviously purple (violet) is nearer to blue than to red, and is not between those two colors.

Politicos prefer textile analogies over science.

Prep time for Alaska

I merely hope when inevitably the current president allows Russia to annex Alaska (because, as you know, it was once part of their country... 150 years ago) that he gives enough notice to Sarah Palin so she has time to learn the Cyrillic alphabet (because, as you know, she's not exactly a quick study).

(You thought I was going to make a joke about how it will be much easier to see Russia from her house, but that seemed a bit too obvious.)

Fight the power... but...

I know we need to keep resisting this buffoon who is currently in the Oval Office and his ridiculous cabinet and his poorly considered policies, and certainly we should, but just in case that doesn't work out I have this humble request:

If it looks like we're all going to succumb to despair, all I ask is that someone give me a heads-up as early as possible so I can do it without just seeming like I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Thank you.

Squishy

Our three-year-old son has taken to occasionally wanting to hold my arm for a few seconds as a soothing gesture when I put him to bed. And it's not my wrist he seeks but my bicep; he has even gone so far as to ask me to roll up my sleeves to grant him better access to that part of the upper arm.

As a parent of a pre-schooler, I am generally tired and will appease him because it means he will go to sleep faster.

At first I thought he found it comforting to touch the muscle, as though it made him feel safe to be near his strong Daddy. Then he started squeezing my bicep and gleefully saying it was "squishy."

Here's the thing: I am absolutely certain in his mind that is a colossal compliment. That his father has a part of the arm which he can squeeze is apparently what makes him feel better in those moments after I've turned off the light in his room.

It is that oblivion that makes it somewhat endearing, and allows me to put aside societal conditioning about musculature when he specifically asks for "the squishy part" (as has become his preferred phrasing).

I could be more physically fit (of course), but rather than this inspiring me to hit the gym I am merely pleased he hasn't figured out a way to try to grab my stomach. Which I'm sure will only be a matter of time until he does.

And I'm sure I'll learn to live with that, because while I may only be doing so-so when it comes to being "in shape" I can roll with such things by being in reasonably decent parenting condition. Or, again, too tired to object.

Michael saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus

Obviously numerous versions of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" have been recorded since Jimmy Boyd first did in 1952, but the best clearly was the one performed by the Jackson 5 on their 1970 Christmas Album.

It's not merely the pop mastery of the group or the production, but the way young Michael says just before the solo:
"I did, I really did see Mommy kissing Santa Claus, and I'm gonna tell my dad."

Why does that put it above all others? Let's examine.

Give a shit?

Some months back I struggled to put together the headboard for an Ikea bed (and was reminded the items one gets at that store are actually Swedish torture devices masquerading as affordable furniture), and I vowed it was the last fucking thing I'd ever put together from there*. As I was alone I didn't refrain from venting my frustration through profane utterances. At one point I declared (in reference to the possibility of being required to assemble some such item in the future) that I "didn't give a shit" in some hypothetical wherein I may have to leave my wife and child in order to escape another agrivating assembly scenario.

It was not one of my finer moments, but that's not the point here.

Reflecting later on that expression—"I don't give a shit"—I was somewhat intrigued as to how that became a common idiom. It connotes a significant lack of concern for consequences with the indication of anger and/or exasperation; it carries a bit stronger message than merely saying "I really don't care." And while I have no difficulty believing there would be a need for such a sentiment, parsing out the literal meanings of the component terms there is the suggestion that if one does care about the ramifications of a decision one "gives a shit," and in that scenario it raises the question: To whom is one giving that shit?

Contemplating "homophobia" literally

Resurrecting posts I never got around to at the time...

Remember a few years ago when a man who was fired from a business that teaches English to foreigners for writing about homophones (because his ignorant boss thought it had some association with homophobia), I am... finally... using that as a paltry excuse inspired to share the following which I'd composed before that incident (for no particular reason), despite the peril in which I could be putting myself.

(Having never made a penny from the blahg, I'm not risking much, I concede.)

~

Let's take a moment to consider the term "homophobia." Obviously that designates a prejudice toward homosexuals, derived from the pejorative truncating of that down to "homo" and tacking on the Greek "phobia" ("fear of"). This construction has been around for many years now and certainly is ingrained in the contemporary lexicon; I'm not suggesting it isn't handy for identifying that, or that there isn't still a significant need for such a term.

However, that construction—of a slang-influenced abbreviated version of one term and the (let's call it) scientific-based term—seems, upon reflection, like it should be somewhat troublesome. If one is aware of the etymology of "homo" and knows that means "same" then the literal translation becomes "fear of the same," and while that could still be construed to mean "fear of those who are sexually attracted to their same gender" it could just as easily suggest a fear of those who are like oneself. I'm not implying that's really a thing (although I'm not going to say it's not either), or that there seems a need for such a term. I'm merely noting it's a word that operates a little better if one doesn't break it down to its component parts, if one doesn't know the origins of those parts.