Laid-Off Dad

Fomenting the arse agenda

Right now, I have mixed feelings about something I did this afternoon. On the one hand: Concern over whether what I did will have a long-term deleterious impact on things. On the other: The unshakeable truth that dammit, butts are funny.

Robert has a friend in his class whose companionship he values more dearly that just about anything. (Except maybe Legos. And tater tots.) Every day it's, "Me and Eric did [X]," or "Eric did [X], and I was, like, [Y]," or "You should have seen Eric's face when I did [Z]." In many cases, [X], [Y], or [Z] will involve the gluteus, because they're five, and that's the law.

Eric's mom, however, doesn't like when the boys prattle on and on about butts. When we're all together, on the way to school or on the playground, Robert has incited a butt-based dialog, and Eric's mom has wrinkled her nose and told the boys to cut it out. And she had a hard time concealing her distaste for the unclean guttersnipe who infects her own perfect child's brain with these evil, feculent thoughts.

Frankly, this is bullshit. When you're in kindergarten, butts are the most awesomely risible thing on the planet. And though I'm sensitive to people who think butts are not the most polite thing to discuss with your grandmother over tea and finger sandwiches, what exactly is the alternative? Tell him butts are bad, or dirty? Or tell him there are too many stuck-up stickybeats who can't forgive a five-year-old for a little rectum rhetoric?

So anyway. The boys and I were reading Dr. Seuss's "The Foot Book" this afternoon, and Robert said, "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a 'Butt Book'?" And I thought this was so hilarious that I re-read the book, inserting "butt" for "foot" along the way. The sniggering built over "wet butt, dry butt" and "Here comes a clown butt." We about lost it with "Small butt, big butt, here comes a pig butt." Then came "fuzzy fur butt," and we laughed so hard we set off about a dozen car alarms.

We all got a deep, cleansing laugh out of this, and then Robert took off to write his own "Butt Book," complete with wonderfully biological drawings. But Eric's mom is due for an eventual earful that I have officially endorsed, and if she's nutty enough she might choose to keep the boys apart when they're out of school. (I've seen this before, and it's not pretty.)

It's a shame when your kid's friends' parents have such big bugs up their asses.

"Shay" as in Stadium, "bon" as in Jovi

So you re-commit yourself to reading actual books, with actual spines and bookmarks and ISBNs, and sure enough: Words that were clinging to the walls of your brain prom are suddenly out dancing with abandon. Leave it to a singular talent like Michael Chabon to spike the punch.

I feel good about finally getting on with his latest novel, which, if you're a fan, is as vivid and delightful as you might expect. I saw Chabon at the 92nd Street Y last fall, and if you were there, too, I was the guy who asked the last question of the night. It was about screenwriting, and how it differed from novel writing (because Chabon has a writing credit for Spider-Man 2, and he's adapting Kavalier & Clay). At which point Chabon's already-bright eyes brightened, and he smiled that crocodile smile, and said one of the big thrills of his life, as a comic-book enthusiast, was when Sam Raimi called and said, "Spidey needs you."

I've been a fan of Chabon's since I read "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" during my first, terrible year out of college, and he's still one of a handful of authors whose work I would buy, sight unseen. The difference with his current book, though, is the preponderance of Yiddish terms and slang; I'm so up to my navel in sholems and shtinkers and shtarkers and shammeses that I've made a little translation card and used it as a bookmark.

Up next at the Y for me: A bar-room brawl discussion between Christopher Hitchens and a rabbi over whether God exists. Do you think they'll sell popcorn?

Fundamental

For a while, I didn't understand what had happened. After last year's Blopathon, writing every day had me pretty jazzed up. Not as jazzed as the first one, mind you, but jazzed enough. Apart from that month, however, it's been a struggle to post more than twice a week. I spent some time wondering why this is when it suddenly hit me, like a Larousse Gastronomique to the face: I don't read enough books.

I used to, a lot. But then a funny thing happened after I had children: Whenever I cracked open a book, within 10 minutes I would pass out (and occasionally wake up in Connecticut). I can't get into a narrative because I have the damnedest time prying my eyelids open. I tried reading during my commute, but it's blessedly short (and sardine-like) enough to make it not worth the trouble. So I'm reduced to reading in smaller bits, from magazines, or newspapers, or blogs--or from comedy compendiums like "I Am America" or "Our Dumb World"--mostly on the commode. And that's no way t0 live.

Then I saw yet another article about yet another census report telling us that the percentage of people who read books for pleasure keeps on declining. And, more importantly, that when people don't read their imaginations start to atrophy, and they become sedentary couch slugs who stare blankly at front-load washing machines. Or yell at Simon Cowell. Or vote Huckabee.

That piece was the kick in the ass I desperately needed to get me back on the bookwagon. The boys and I are reading almost every night (Robert has taken a shine to Encyclopedia Brown), and I'm actively looking for the Next Great Literary Thing. So I've joined Good Reads and loaded up my little box on the left column with a few of my favorite books, the kind I could read over and over. If you're a member, or thinking about it, or just waiting for your next parole hearing, I'd appreciate it if you go ahead and friend me. Because if there's anything we as a society need, it's more social networking.

In the meantime, I resolve to re-re-pick up that $%#@$% Chabon novel and finish it. Even if I have to start buying Red Bull by the case.

Back on the grid, part deux

Thank you all, once again, for your comments and e-mails about my laptop, and the need not to trust it with my most valuable digital property ever again. Because a rogue motherboard might go through menopause or whatever and start pecking at the very computer guts that sustain it, resulting ultimately in priceless and irreplaceable words and images zapped to oblivion. I am pricing external hard drives, which apparently now can fit 2 fajillion terabytes onto the head of a pin, and the consensus of opinion says I should get one with its own power source. Any thoughts on that, tech support enthusiasts of the world?

Soon after my laptop was returned to me, data intact, it had a bit of a relapse. Apparently the machine didn't like the new version of the OS and starting giving me error messages that it was counterfeit. Then the video drivers went kerflooey and started randomly blacking out the screen. This is my work laptop, so it's not as if I can just load it onto a comput-apult and launch it into the East River. Luckily, the risibly named Mr. But has been a trooper, putting out every fire I bring to him with unfailing exuberance. I was a bit unnerved by that smile that never seemed to leave his face, that would seemingly withstand the most brutal assault on his nadsack, until his boss told me this is his first job out of school. Ah, I thought. It all makes sense now. He's still a foal, tottering around on his wobbly legs in the meadow of Work Life without having landed in any of its myriad cowpats.

So how have I been spending my time? Well, if you don't count all the re-loading of software and re-membering of passwords (all my cookies are gone), I've been boogie-ing with the boys, who've developed an abiding passion for "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals. The video is bookmarked, so Robert can find it any time he wants and ROCK! OUT! The video has lots of guitar work, so Robert is big with the tennis racquet on the couch, strumming lustily. And then there's TwoBert, gamely (and often nakedly) offering background vocals (DRIVE ME CRAZY! NO ONE ELSE!) at the top of his itty bitty lungs. When I get home in the afternoon, "Drive Me Crazy" is often the first phrase out his mouth, and we get a good ten listens in before I can change out of my work clothes. Then there are the extemporaneous lyrics ("She drives me crazy, and I keep punching my butt!").

At one point, after we'd heard the song for the 2 fajillionth time, Robert asked, "Daddy, what's 'obsessed' mean?"

Look in the mirror, my boy.

Back on the grid

After several days of fretful Weblessness, I'm happy to report that the patient lived. I had to wait until last Friday before our Tech Doctor was back at his desk, but he quickly diagnosed that my laptop's motherboard was corrupting the hard drive. You hear that, ladies? The motherboard, so named apparently for its progenitive, nurturing, and protective nature, tried to go all Medea on my data. All our lives the techies have told us to back up our data, print things out, etc., because you Just Never Know. And we do it, when we remember, until a near-death experience like this one gets you religion. So my next project is to make my hard-copy photo scrapbook, before Livia Soprano puts a hit out on my kids' birthday pictures.

When it came time to see the Tech Doctor, I was still on vacation. Which means our sitter Bridget was also still on vacation. So after I dropped Robert at kindergarten, TwoBert and I went up to Meet The Coworkers. I normally like bringing my kids to work, because their darlingness reflects well on me. "We are proud to employ this man," they think, "because his children have a blinding charisma that burns my retinas, yet I cannot look away." But after I dropped off the PC, we ran into the Big Kahuna, Queen of the Whole Shooting Match, who knelt down to throw her arms around little TwoBert. And he responded by slapping his backside and yelping, "I like my butt!"

See, we're in a huge brother-worship phase right now, and Robert's glutes dominates his daily discourse. Naturally, TwoBert is along for the ride, singing the praises of rumpophilia at every opportunity. I find myself torn between 1) riding it out and 2) actively telling my children to please-for-the-love-of-Mike STOP with the butts already, but lately it seems like the latter is a losing battle. Especially when our Tech Doctor, the man who saved me from a life of churning my own butter, is a native of Hong Kong named ... and I am not making this up ... Mr. But.

"Why yes, that is a diaper in my pocket."

Three days into Aught-Eight, and I'm still on vacation. Some people might say that shifting into primary caregiver mode and walking a pair of balaclava-ed boys off to school in subzero temperatures isn't much of a respite from the daily grind, but those people have fallen out of the Crazy Tree and hit every branch on the way down. I don't mind that there's zero chance of doing anything outside because of the icy wind that freezes your nostrils shut. I don't mind that TwoBert is in love with every Christmas gift that makes noise and likes to rend the silence with repetitive button-pushing that would make for a lovely game of "Thomas The Tank Engine Has Tourette's." I don't mind that Robert wrinkled his nose at the roast chicken I made ("There's too much lemon!") and reacted even less favorably to the chicken soup I made from the homemade, boiled-carcass stock ("There's too much thyme!").

This is the life, and these are the days.

Incidentally, the title of this post is something I said to another parent while TwoBert and I were waiting to collect Robert from school yesterday. If there's a better idea for the New Official Laid-Off Tagline, I'd like to hear it.