• Beth Grows Up

    The site lost something when the kids got older. When kids get into trouble as an infant, it’s much more amusing than when they’re a teen. Plus, somewhere in between they learn how to read, become aware of the world around them, and don’t find it amusing when they lose control of their own narrative.

    I’m making an exception with this post because it’s really about me – and that’s not my ego talking. I’ve been ego impaired since a tragic incident early in my childhood.

    Something hit me the other day.

    F—! It hit me again! Agh! Damn it! Stop that!

    Beth is graduating from High School this year.

    I’ve know this for a long time… like some people know they’ll have kids one day. After your first is born (and sometime between the grand entrance and your first all-nighter on the first night home) it hits you. Your life is never going to be the same.

    I can’t help but wonder if the same is true when they leave home (the first time). They’re born and BANG – you have a child. Twenty odd years of experience and conditioning, of taking care of yourself and worrying over your own life, (milage will vary) all of it is thrown out the window. Then they leave and BANG – you have a child out in the world. Eighteen years of experience and conditioning, of being responsible for the care and safety of a person in progress, much of it becomes obsolete. I wonder if you can really prepare for either one, or if they both sneak up and shatter your worldview in an instant.

    It didn’t hit me when Beth started her senior year, took her SATs, or even when she got her first college acceptance letter. I knew there was no way in this lifetime any of us could pay for it – that or I was in some serious denial. It hit me when she got her second. It hit me again when she scheduled a tour of the campus, and once more when she left for it this morning with Cheryl.

    Holy shit. She really is going to go.

    Don’t worry about her. She’s gonna be fine. I’m the one you should worry about. One day soon she’s going to leave for college.

    For better or worse, I’ll finally know what it’s like to have a child out in the world.

    My loss will be your gain.

    You’re welcome.

  • My hero

    This morning I was driving to work. An intersection flashed past my window as the Foo Fighters sang the refrain: “There goes my hero…,” and in a flash fantasy: I’m the inspiration for the song.

    In the moment I felt like the Shat-man staring down Khan in Wrath of. I sneered at life like I knew something it didn’t: I’ve got it’s number… (I digress back to Khan) or the ship computer’s number. “Oh yeah, that’s right. You might be named after some bad-ass Monguls (or not, I don’t really know), but I’m gonna push this button and your shields are gonna drop like a feather in a vacuum – assuming there’s something with a bunch of mass nearby to provide a lot more gravity than just a feather, of course.”

    That’s right. The Shat-man may be cool, but he knows his basic physics too.

    In the moment I felt like I was going into battle (as if I’ve ever been in a battle), and the rest of the day was looking back across from the other side of the battlefield. It was an F.U. moment and I’m not referring to Furman University. I was feeling the pain of another morning after PT, but I felt like JT Kirk, drawing a line in the sand with my boot (I was actually wearing a really nice pair of loafers I’d never wear in the sand, but bear with me) and sneering at life. “Yeah, you might make it this far – BUT NO FURTHER, YOU HEAR ME?!?”

    Cliche? Sure, but when you’re in the moment life doesn’t wait for you to come up with something better.

    But the song ended and with it went a bit of my mojo. But then I remembered what waited for me at the office: coffee – my first dose of caffeine for the day. Those bitter ground brown beans were begging me to brew and imbibe.

    Once again I was ready.

    I am ready.

    Alright Friday, do your best. I’ll be right here waiting for you.

  • Beating up Facebook and being beaten

    Last September I wrote a post about leaving Facebook, but I’d left a while before the post. Not long after I deactivated my account and deleted the app from my iPhone, thinking I wouldn’t be back for a while. I didn’t give anyone a reason because I didn’t want it to be interpreted as a grand statement, but I had one – a personal one.

    I was depressed. Big shock, right? I’ve been depressed and writing or talking about being depressed for a couple years. But 2014 was bad. At times it was about as bad as it’s been. If you’ve never experienced clinical/major depression, I can’t make you understand it. It’s beyond my ability as a writer or speaker. It may be beyond anyone’s ability. Part of it was me – the way I’m wired. Another was a combination of events from my recent (moving) and remote past.

    I was fighting this battle with my own mind when news broke about Facebook doing research on its members to study emotional response. Or rather – it had done research in the past, and the first we were hearing about it was when they decided to publish.

    We could have a long discussion about reasonable (and unreasonable) expectations of privacy, informed consent, terms of service documents, and ethical research practices. We could but I won’t. I was depressed. I recalled my own experience doing psychological research on human subjects in school. Imagine yourself at your most fragile, vulnerable state. Then imagine you found out people were manipulating what you saw to see how it affected how you feel. I got very angry.

    End of story.

    Well, the end of that story.

    I’ve thought a lot about social media. I’ve thought about socialization. I don’t make friends easily, and people don’t stay put, so most of my friends are not local. Depression is not something anyone should suffer in solitude, so cutting off access to my friends (in hindsight) was not a great idea.

    Oh, and Lord help me. I bought Facebook stock. I had just enough in my account from Apple dividends to buy one share. So, as is my quirky, market custom – guaranteed to cost me more money than make me (due to transaction fees) – I bought the one share.

    I feel dirty, but I couldn’t very well stoop to buying stock and not reactivate my account.

    So here I am. You may mock me at any time.