The Television People Are My Friends

There's a problem with television. It's using up vital emotional resources I need for other things.

It's true. We went without television for another six months or so at the beginning of this year--the easy access to mind-numbing entertainment proved too tempting. It was only during a moment of cognizance, during a commercial for The Simple Life, probably, that we recognized our souls were actually being sucked out. So we ditched it for a bit. Then its siren song sounded in us, calling us back to amusement and easy access to images of hip young people in large apartments bantering wittily with one another and we got it back.

Yes, much of television is annoying and about 80% of all current programming could disappear and I'd never miss it. I would say that commercials could disappear as well, but since they may form part of my livelihood one day, I love them and wish they were more numerous and featured longer speaking parts. Actually, good commercials aren't the problem; it's all the many, many bad ones. But if a bad commercial could pay for my classes, so be it. I'll be part of the problem.

My real difficulty is with the parts of television I like, however. It's too easy to get caught up in the perils and escapades of characters and stories that are actually compelling and spending your emotional currency on them. I only have room in my emotional reserve to care about maybe ten people--twenty, tops. What do I do if half a dozen slots are taken by brave doctors doing their best under difficult circumstances and putting the needs of patients before the stiff hospital rules? And two more are taken up by a pair of intellectual, smart-talking cops who take a no-holds-barred attitude toward crime? Man, I can't afford to care about another series; add in a edgy secret agent and a wisecracking middle-class family with issues about childrearing and I'll have to dump grandma out of my emotional matrix. That's not cool.

I'm certainly not against getting caught up in a good story. That's what good books and movies and plays and, yes, television shows do. But it takes time and effort to read a book, and you can only see so many plays per day. That used to be true of movies, too, before VCRs and DVDs. But television can hook you all day. Heck, I got caught up last night in rooting for people on So You Think You Can Dance? (I know--reality shows generally bite. This one has people displaying actual skills and less ruthless commentary than others, so it's interesting). I also admit to watching Hell's Kitchen while it was on.

We do get invested in these people and spend brainpower and emotional effort worrying about them, wondering what will happen to them. And the kicker is, of course, that we don't actually know them. Most of them are made up. If someone told you they were really worried about and often spent time thinking about the activities of made-up people, you'd call a psychologist. And rightly so.

Wait a minute. That's what roleplaying essentially is.

Um... forget that last part. Everything's fine. Enjoy your Law and Order and your Apprentice. All is well here.

Conform; Conform; Conform

The books my children have been given may not be sending the right message.

Case in point: Percival the Plain Little Caterpillar

This is a charming little book with psychedelic shimmering-foil colors that tells the tale of Percival, the caterpillar who is, in fact, plain. Plain brown. He wanders around the garden admiring all the other creatures for their colors: Bella the Bee for her shiny yellow stripes, Dennis the Dragonfly for his iridescent blue wings, Lizzie the Lizard for her odd, possibly-caused-by-radiation purple spots, and so on. All these characters are, at best, callous towards Percival's clear jealousy of their more garish hues, and at worst are positively cruel, mocking the poor little dope for his blandness. Finally Percival curls up into a chrysalis and sleeps--dreaming, he claims, of colors. When he awakens he has, of course, transformed into a butterfly, his wings glimmering and glowing with every shade he expressed insane jealousy over earlier. The other animals all look on admiringly.

The clear lesson: If others don't accept you, change yourself until they do.

Hooray.

A lot of children's stories work this way. They teach lessons of obedience, acceptance of social norms, and the unending quest to be accepted. There's some good in this, I suppose--it would be counterproductive to teach them at four to rebel against the system and embrace anarchy. But they are depressingly conformist.

Take the venerable story of the Ugly Duckling. In most versions, the duckling is taunted and shunned because he is, well, ugly. Real ugly. And of course it later turns out he was a cygnet and he blossoms into a beautiful swan and everyone feels very badly for being mean to him and wants to be his friend and get invited to his swank Hollywood parties, but by then the former Ugly Duckling (now calling himself the Bodacious Swan, or just "BS" to his friends--oh, how they do chuckle over that one at the Polo Lounge) no longer takes their calls and has his bodyguards split off from his entourage and lay the smack down on the other ducks when no one is looking. Or something like that, I think. It's been a while since I read the story.

In any case, the depressing lesson of this one is, "Don't be mean to unattractive people because they may grow up to be good looking." Not, "Don't be mean to unattractive people because it's not morally acceptable to do so," or even, "Don't be mean to unattractive people because they may be packing heat," but a clear warning that you may regret your cruelty because your victim may later turn out to be not so unattractive any more. Yikes. Even if you're trying to see it from the duckling's perspective, the idea is that you should hang in there because someday you may become beautiful and therefore more socially acceptable.

What if the Ugly Duckling stayed ugly? Would the taunting of the other fowl be justified? Would they swim about as he went through a difficult adolescence and morphed into the full-grown Ugly Duck, smugly secure in knowing their rejection was well deserved? Didn't anyone think this through?

I guess these stories are not as desperately violent as "The Three Little Pigs" (teaching the vital truth that it's important to follow all applicable local building codes) or "Little Red Riding Hood" (not fairyland's most observant little girl), nor does it endorse larceny on the scale of Goldilocks' (now serving 5-15 for breaking and entering and destruction of property), but it certainly seems that there must be more valuable lessons to teach. I guess we have to look to television to impart those important messages. Thank goodness for TV.

ps--I'm trying too hard now, aren't I?

I Need a Montage

Life is hard. It's been made infinitely harder by the viewing of too many movies.

Movies present life like we want it to be, or at least neatly and cleanly. So many dazzling possibilities exist within them that just never seem to crop up in my everyday life. So for starters I've got to cope daily with the disappointment that I am not secretly a wizard recruited into a hidden school of magic, nor am I a messianic figure destined to break the mold of our everyday world which turns out to be a massive illusion generated by heat-sucking computers, nor am I a super-powerful mutant with the ability to fly and make strangers obey my every command. That's bad enough.

But even on a more realistic level, movies show us elements that weave together into a story, so that we can bathe in our delight at the happy ending or sigh with heartfelt sorrow at the tragic conclusion. Nothing pointless happens in movies; nothing occurs that doesn't fit in the thread somehow. My life seems mostly made up of extraneous bits, sidelines, and I spend my days wondering when I'll get back to the main plot. That's strike two against "real life."

Worst, though, is that the characters in movies accomplish all that is needful in those few hours on the screen, no matter how long the actual work and sweat and crying and self-flagellation would last in the real world. The monster can be vaporized using its own deadly radiation against it; the show that will save the orphanage can be planned, organized, and performed to the delight of audiences everywhere; the vigilante cop can track down the drug dealer who killed his partner in an undercover operation that went bad and impale him on a flagpole despite the fact that his by-the-book captain doesn't like rogue cops who don't play by the rules.

This is why I need a montage. Wouldn't that be great? If we could utilize the awesome power of the montage, we wouldn't have to put in the endless hours and days of work needed to accomplish most worthwhile things; we'd just skip around among significant scenes that highlighted our progress at key moments without having to muck about with the uninteresting details.

For instance, Chris was chatting with me today and cruelly making me think about pursuing a career in writing columns and essays and such (based on my sterling performance here). I would have been happier had the thought never really occured to me--now I was stuck thinking about the tantalizing possibility.

But it would be hard. I'd have to do a lot of work. Hard work. The montage would fix that.

We'd start out with a shot of me reading my IM messages from Chris, stroking my chin reflectively, then assuming a square-jawed look of determination and nodding once, resolutely, at the computer screen (presumably, the computer would display huge green-screen blocky '80s text so that it could be read by the viewer). I'd then open a drawer, pull out a pen and paper, and begin to write as the strains of some '90s pop hit (I'm guessing Smashmouth's "Rockstar") began to spool over the visuals.

A series of quick cuts to various scenes, each lasting 3-5 seconds:

Me, writing furiously, several cheap notebooks full of scrawled notes and amusing doodles spread haphazardly over the desk.

Me, typing away on my laptop in my office, shot from behind the monitor so the CRT reflection can be seen in my glasses.

Me, bouncing Madeline on my knee and typing with my free hand on the laptop sitting on the living room coffee table. Joanna in the background, shaking her head with gentle bemusement as a knowing smile plays at her lips. "That husband."

Me walking into a large newspaper office, computer swinging at my side, portfolio in my hand.

Me, walking back out of the newspaper office, head down, dejected. Then I look up, square my jaw, and stride purposefully back to the car.

Me, typing at Starbucks, attractive teenagers chatting in the background while reading books of amusing essays. Two young women in low-cut, midriff-exposing blouses saunter by; I take no notice, so lost am I in my work. The generically bland teenage counter clerk looks on, smirks, shakes his head with gentle bemusement. "Dude."

Me, reading a sheet of paper in my dimly lit office, then suddenly crumpling it into a ball and tossing it over my shoulder. The camera pans down to show the trash can overflowing with crumpled papers.

Me, asleep at my desk, my head resting on piles of scrawled-upon paper, a pencil still clutched in my hand, my glasses askew on my forehead. Joanna enters, smiles knowingly again, removes my glasses and pulls an afghan up over my shoulders.

Me, smiling, typing quickly, nodding, not paying any attention to what keys I'm actually punching.

Me, walking into another newspaper office, this one sleeker and more friendly-looking. Cut to me rising at the same time as a large man in a too-small gray sportcoat and ugly tie. Both of us smile, shake hands.

Me, walking out of said newspaper office, grinning in the noon sun. Three steps into the parking lot, I suddenly jump up, pump my fist in the air, and click my heels together. Freeze frame on my delighted face. The music reaches a triumphant crescendo, then spools out as the image fades to black.

Cut back to me, the montage ended, smiling as I finish another Pulitzer-winning column. I square off the paper and drop it in a manila envelope. The wall of my office has several clipped newspaper articles pinned up, mostly published copies of my columns but intermixed are a few articles on my success. My picture can be seen prominently at the top left of one article with a headline that reads, "Local Writer Considered for Nobel Prize." I have a fancier computer, a nicer chair, and better clothes than I had when we began. My office is also in a mansion.

See? That would be sweet. Thirty seconds, and I get to skip over all the dull, tedious, difficult bits and move straight to sweet, sweet victory.

Maybe I should take up screenwriting instead.

English 101 Syllabus Information

Instructor Name: M.A.S. "Professor" will do fine.

Office: If it's really all that important, you'll figure it out.

Office Hours: None. Meetings by appointment only. If you can find me.

Office Phone: None you need concern yourselves with. No phone calls accepted. Send an e-mail.

E-mail: A careful search may turn up my e-mail. No one can stop you from trying.

Course Policies: All work must be turned in on time; no late work is accepted. Papers will be returned when I can get to them. If I am late returning your work, that is just too bad.

You must be on time to class. I will frequently be late. I will give quizzes at the beginning of classes when I arrive on time to catch people who have come to rely on my being late.

You must have an excellent excuse for missing class; otherwise, your grade will be docked. I may be gone multiple times for no good reason. This you must deal with without complaint.

I will be encouraging when I should be more realistic about your chances; this will salve my conscience. When I should be encouraging, I will be reserved, in order that you don't get a sense of hope. I will almost never update you on your grade and if you ask, I will make excuses not to tell you. I will express shock when you are disappointed with your final grade.

I will give you breaks during the course if I like you; I will hold strictly to the rules if I do not.

Assignments: I will begin by thinking we can do six essays during the class. By the end, I'll have dropped that to four, lowering substantially the opportunities for improving your grade.

Since I only begin planning a few minutes before each class, assignments will be haphazard and often nonsensical. I will forget I assigned about half of the work I give.

Course Procedures: I will demand you laugh at my jokes, even when they are not funny. They are mostly not funny. I will become upset if you speak too much, then berate you for being too quiet. I will make you uncomfortable by trying to initiate casual conversation, then quickly cut such conversation short if it starts to pick up.

I will ask complicated questions and then be disappointed when you cannot immediately come up with an answer. I will often speak in such a way as to cause more confusion than I clear up and become impatient when you cannot follow my convoluted logic.

Enjoy the course.

Is it surprising that I don't think I'm cut out for the teaching thing?

Who Will Do My Work for Me?

Where do dads get their superhuman powers? I'm a dad--I want mine!

Dan and I were discussing this at the party. Dads of our parents' generation seem capable of doing just about anything related to survival or daily living. Sure, my dad can't write a clear e-mail to save his life, but when my car isn't working he's the guy I describe the symptoms to. Granted, he worked in my grandfather's garage for most of his youth, but the same applies if I'm trying to fix any appliance, or build a fence, or move to a new house, or build a fire in the wildnerness, or construct a replica 19th century steam clipper, or anything.

You could argue that they are men of a generation in which more was done hands-on, that they were required to know more such things simply by the lives they had to lead. But they also possess a differing work ethic, at least from me, a sense of drive and duty which I shouldn't think could entirely be explained by a 50's upbringing. They live in a world where any possible job that needs doing comes before their own personal well-being and happiness, which is eminently admirable but not something I seem capable of most of the time.

I spent today lazing about, occasionally jumping down on the floor with the boys to break up fight number 2,463 over their new Matchbox tracks (their fights consist mainly of yelling at one another, thankfully, and haven't yet escalated to all-out beatings; hopefully by the time that happens, they'll be old enough for me to shrug and say, "Don't break any bones or you'll both get it") or to pretend to be a tiger, taking a few turns at baby bouncing, and the like. But mainly I moved slowly and ate leftover hot dogs. Now, there are at least five hundred things around this house that need doing, everything from picking up toys off the living room floor to priming and repainting the hallway to building a new parking deck. I made progress on approximately none of them. I know my dad would have completed six jobs and made preparation for three more while still spending the same amount of time with his children.

Where does that come from? Where do I sign up for a work ethic? I don't particularly want to inherit the ability to tell long-winded stories to store clerks and waitresses, or the drive to try to speak Spanish to anyone who has slightly tan skin, or to give vastly over-complex directions to any destination no matter how close, or the urge to give advice on even the simplest tasks ("Now you're going to want to keep your doors closed as you drive over here, and make sure that you use your headlights when it gets dark, you hear?"), but some of that dedication to doing the right thing and taking care of your responsibilities would be sorely welcome. I'd like the boys to have something they look up to me for besides my incredible good looks (which they'll likely inherit anyway), my endless charm, and my ability to weave massive, unrealized dreams and then complain about not achieving them. They deserve better.

The Aftermath

The party is over. Almost everyone survived.

Actually, it was pretty good. The day was warm but not mind-broilingly hot; the park we were festivating in was spacious and green (in Redlands, land of many parks). The grandparents were in attendance, as were a dozen of the boys' wee pals. We ate meat products shaped into long sticks, many deep-fried chip-related products, and melon. I was the barbeque master, by which I mean I was in charge of the grilling of the aforementioned meat products, not that I am in any way an expert or prince at it. Indeed, I tried to keep my father at bay, knowing he would be far my superior at barbeque, and wouldn't you know it, he walked over and two minutes later had things working much better. It's tough to be a man. I cope by having no self-esteem; makes social interactions that much easier.

It was a strange celebration of materialism--when present-opening began, the boys would tear open one package and generally want to play with whatever they opened. But of course there were other people in attendance, so we have to make them set those things aside and push yet more gifts on them, making them mumble half-hearted thanks to the giver. They're too young to really pull this off, or even fully realize what the gift-giving really signifies; they just know they're being given many wrapped boxes with fun things inside. Or non-fun things, like clothes, which were unceremoniously ignored. Who could blame them--there were Thomas trains and battery-powered cars, Colorforms (hey!) and construction equipment in spades to keep their attention. You try to force a newly four-year-old to be excited about pants, no matter how nice. That will come later, when they learn about social graces and shame.

It was great to chat with Dan and his family, as well as the others who attended. Frisbees were thrown, trees were climbed, and swings were swung--all in all, very Norman Rockwell (though I'd have been wearing a much more formal button-down and slacks, and probably smoking a pipe if it really had been; the meat products would have been less carbonized, too) and pleasant. I'm wiped out now, but it was worth it. Good times.

ps--Apropos of nothing, and just for Devin, I'd like to report that I'm currently watching The Boogens, which should make him just ecstatic. Surprisingly, it's not as fantastic a movie as that dynamite title would suggest. Early eighties' horror; perhaps not civilization's ultimate expression.

No Fences Make for Good or Bad Neighbors, Depending

Chris' post over at Diametral Pitch about his neighbor put me in mind of our neighbor and all the fun we've had with him for the past several years. Now you get to hear about it, too.

We've actually been blessed with mostly fantastic neighbors. On our left is Father John (a Greek Orthodox priest--the house is full of beautiful icons) and his family, with kids about the boys' age. They're very friendly and generally great folks. On our right is Dennis, a firefighter and really nice guy who has helped out with various things; he organized a neighborhood barbeque, gave us the wood from the trees he cleared, and helped ensure our houses weren't burned down in the Old Fire.

And then there's Tony.

Tony owns the land below ours. I have to admit, about 62% of why I bought the house was the view--we live at the edge of the National Forest, and there's nothing below us but about six thousand feet of hillside. From our property, you can see most of the Inland Empire spread out below (when the smog layer is thin enough, anyway).

We have no driveway, but an access road runs below all our houses. And we knew that someone owned the lots below, but from what we understood, they weren't buildable because they're too far removed from the road.

We were right. Tony, however, doesn't care.

We first met him when he buldozed the access road. He cut off the bottom of our driveway to the point that I could charge extreme sports participants a fee to drive down it. The man has no permits and couldn't get them if he bribed all the officials on the mountain. The access road is at too severe an angle to be used as a fire road; no building he could construct would be close enough to a sewer line or hydrant to be legal. Even knowing he isn't allowed to build, he's dragged tons of material down to the lot. Literally, tons. There are half a dozen pallets of full-sized logs sitting down there, beckoning my children to play amongst their unwieldy mess and serving as perfect wildfire platforms. Because they're illegal to have on his lot, he's hidden them down in the trees and thrown green tarps over them. His beat-up 60's-era trailer is rusting away down there (it used to be on our driveway before Father John pushed it down the hill--he's a good man to have on hand), as is the old Suzuki Samurai that hasn't moved since we got here three years ago. Old tents and crates litter the lot, all destroyed because he leaves them for months through all the weather.

The fun goes on from there, but I won't drag you through it. We might be able to take some of it, but he's also personally obnoxious (I don't know if he's professionally obnoxious as well, but I'd guess so). He's tried to intimidate all of us into letting him do whatever he wants, and he sometimes acts as though he's going to be reasonable, then does something insanely inappropriate the next week. Let's put it this way: Joanna has only yelled at another person twice in her adult life, and both times it's been him.

I'll leave off now. We've finally gotten the proper authorities lined up for when he makes his next bizarre move. It's odd, though--it's been a struggle to figure out how to respond to the guy. A part of me wants to just say "live and let live; let's be nice neighbors." And if he were doing things legally, or even safely, I probably would. I'm not positive what the proper Christian response to his antics is. But when the construction equipment roars up my drive and dangerous materials are left strewn about the woodlands in preparation for building dangerous structures, I feel like something has to be done.

No one blocks my view.

Other Strange Things to Annoy and Amuse You

I'm tired and disoriented and cranky. Not enough sleep these past few weeks, crazy room reassignments at school, and endlessly-recurring economic difficulties are making me sad. On top of that, reading other people's much better writing has sucked out my will. All this little blog seems to be is a feeble attempt to emulate some of James Lileks and Mike Nelson without much success.

And I rely far too much on comments. When no one makes any, I start thinking that no one likes me and my work is pitiful and lame and I'm a bad person, despite the fact that people may still be reading and just not have anything to add or any time to add it if he or she did. If this is not the case, please don't let me know.

This leads me to the realization that I'm a sad little man in constant need of praise and encouragement, even when expecting it is unrealistic and massively self-important. Probably why I can't write a novel--without feedback on a regular basis, I give up.

I don't know. I'm probably just tired.

In lieu of more of this self-pity, I present a few other strange little corners of the web I've found of late (while browsing when I should have been doing other, more productive things... oh, forget it).

I can hardly say why, but I laughed myself into convulsions over this:

THIS IS FUN TO MAKE A BLOG ON THE COMPUTER WEBSITE

It's best to start at the bottom and work your way up--otherwise, you won't know who Super Mop-Top or the Billionaire Gentleman-Horse are. It's the closest thing to a transcription of the howling of a random lunatic--possibly European--I've come across. Now that's funny. Be prepared for a lot of all caps.

If you've ever wondered about some of the strange stuff you run across on e-Bay or the like, you haven't seen anything yet. Check out Who Would Buy That?

Despite my envy, I do find James Lilek's stuff fantastic. I've got the permanent link over in the sidebar, but there's a lot of stuff to wade through. For sheer "laugh that you may not cry" entertainment, try the Dayalets. Who thought this was a good idea?

Devin was horrified to find that this was bookmarked on my old computer. I don't know--I just find it really amusing. For a thousand such random generators in almost every category imaginable, try Seventh Sanctum. There are even a few good ideas lurking in amongst all the madness...

Okay, I feel a bit better. I suppose I should do some work. I'll be all better tomorrow. I can feel the incline of my constant mood swings coming on.

ps--Some wags have pointed out in my earlier post that Gaos is actually a foe of Gamera, the giant flying turtle who is "friend to all children" rather than Godzilla. To you I say: Nerds! Giant nerds!

pps--THE DOGS ARE WORRIED! THEY CAN'T FIND THE BEANS!! THEY WERE LOOKING FOR THE BEANS IN THE DRAINS!!!

Hee hee...

Really Reliable and Right on Time

Were you aware that the world is in no danger of a shortage of SpongeBob Squarepants-related merchandise? If you have no children, you might not have realized this and have spent nights lying awake, staring in agony at the shadows playing across the ceiling, worrying that the nation's youth would have no access to SpongeBob on every possible consumer product in existence.

I was reminded of this important truth while searching for the far superior Thomas the Tank Engine-related decorations for the boys' party. While there are truckloads of such items, there are far fewer of them than are given over to Dora, SpongeBob, the hordes of Disney-created beings, Bob the Builder, and a host of others. I blame Americo-Canadian arrogance--Thomas is a pleasant, quiet little show charmingly crafted by pleasant, quiet old men in England and lacks both hipness and edge. Admittedly, it's almost sonambulistically quiet, but it's nice without being annoying. I have to say, however, that were I a resident of the island of Sodor, home of Thomas and his train pals, I don't think I'd choose to travel by the Sodor Railway. Despite Sir Topham Hatt's stern, Churchillian demeanor and dedication to high-quality talking steam enginesin the face of the paradigm shift to diesel engines and the vast economic pressures it must put on his operations, he must have the worst safety record in history. Every episode someone is crashing into something; trains go underwater, smash through stations, fall into collapsing mine shafts or get covered with chocolate... The engines are also constantly getting into petty arguments over perceived slights and misunderstandings, causing endless delays and incorrect routing. I think I'd take Bertie the Bus to my intended destinations, is what I'm saying.

Speaking of names, it is vital you recognize all the trains on sight. Sure, it might not matter to you which diesel is Salty and which is Mavis; the differences in wheel count among the identically-colored Thomas, Edward, and Gordon; which of the twin engines is Bill and which is Ben; the operational differences between Trevor the Traction Engine and Terrence the Tractor; or why Thomas is "reliable" while James is "splendid," but it will matter to your child. Infinitely. Woe betide the visiting grandparent who doesn't know who is being asked for; his or her evening will be filled with pain. When Nathaniel demands to know what Henry is going to say to Toby, he wants a Henry-specific answer. Knowing the history between the two trains--that Henry has a new "shape" which helps him go faster and keeps him from getting sick like he used to (we have yet to discover what his old shape was...) while Toby is a tram engine who was almost scrapped before Sir Hatt had him refurbished to carry passengers and thus shares some traits with Henry--is vital. You must convey their shared pathos while hinting subtly at Toby's possible envy of Henry's more thorough reconstruction or else you have failed.

What can I say? I've raised children with high expectations when it comes to imaginary play. I won't apologize.

Ugly but Safe

I thought this might be a good title for my personal ad, if I were interested in taking one out.

But I kid! Actually, it's a reference to our newly retrofitted Business building here on campus. Those of you who ever went to SBVC, or drove past it quickly to avoid having to look at it longer than necessary, would be a bit shocked to see it today. Because the campus perches precariously on the San Jacinto earthquake fault and lays adjacent to the San Andreas fault and cowers away from a third mystery fault, in the event of an earthquake our instructions are to lie down and pray for a quick death.

But because we're inside the "death triangle," we're of interest to the state who approved some massive constructions projects several years ago. They've demolished several buildings and put up some new ones (the new library now blocks the view from my office window; a new Health and Life Science building stands at the other end of the campus, and a new Administration building opened this summer). By the end they'll tear down another half-dozen buildings and raise a like number, giving us new Campus Center, Art, Nursing, and Chemistry buildings. All in all, the campus should look much newer than it did, which is good considering that it is, in fact, new.

The new buildings are of an odd style, all sandstone blocks with stark, geometrical styling. Windows of varying sizes and shapes seem dotted half-randomly across the exterior walls, and almost all of the buildings feature a set of vast glass walls that intersect at sharp angles and at least one enormous triangular metal flap that hangs down to provide shade, or covered outdoor space, or simply confusion--one instructor suggested they look like the flaps from the Flying Nun's habit.

The odd look is supposedly to support the new super-advanced anti-earthquake construction which will keep these buildings standing when the earthquake comes to claim us all. Lots of terms like "unbonded brace frames" and "performance-based seismic design" get bandied about these days by adminstrators with smug grins and vacant eyes. The upshot is that the buildings should wobble but not fall down. This was not lost on me when a sizeable earthquake struck earlier this year while I worked here in the crumbling old Liberal Arts building; I leapt into the doorway of my office (which you're not supposed to do now, as I understand, lest you be disembowled by the swinging door) and could watch the new library through the window. My only thought was, "If I'm crushed to death and the last thing I see is the sparkly new library swaying gently through the window, I'm going to be seriously put out." You engineering geeks can check it out, with some photos, here.

Of course, the buildings I work in are not those new ones. The Business building (where I teach most of my English classes, of course--that only seems logical) was shut down for a year so they could retrofit it with new supports and repaint it to match the new buildings. It does look better from the outside, admittedly, but teaching in it is very hit and miss. One of my classes is in a room with new carpet, a shiny new clock that tells something like the actual time, freshly painted walls and an overpowering chemical smell that keeps us all slightly high (as a bonus, this seems to make the students less restless). A second room I teach in is much like the old ones with cracked floor tiles, crooked lighting fixtures, and slightly dingy paint--not delightful, but not dangerous. My third room, however, has an exposed concrete floor with clear waterstains in the corners, exposed wiring, and an overall sense that we've been locked in the cellar for being naughty.

Interestingly, these rooms correspond to the various levels of class I'm teaching. The nice room is given to my Freshman Composition students who are clever and follow the rules and are properly trained and clean; the middle room goes to my "middle" class, Preparation for College Writing, the students of which have not always fully adjusted to college life; and the bad room has been foisted on my Basic Writing class, full of those who have the most tattoos and the hardest time adjusting, what with having the most work to get up to snuff. It reminds me of Matt Groening's School Is Hell panel about elementary school in which the Gold and Silver reading groups are to meet at opposite corners of the room, while the Brown group is ordered to gather in the basement...

Sleep, Baby, Sleep

I began typing this long ago, between moments trying to update my online hybrid class syllabus. I can't seem to locate the class online, which is no good thing. At the time, Madeline was sitting in her bouncy chair smiling and cooing at me.



Have I mentioned she's the cutest baby in the world? I have? Good.

In any case, that was long ago, before the happiness ended. We've been walking, crying, changing diapers, and trying to make her happy for many an hour since. She's now finally asleep in her swing, from which I am terrified of moving her for fear she'll awaken again. But of course, now that she's asleep she's become infinitely angelic once more, her natural defense against being sold to the gypsies on nights like this.

I spent a chunk of time in Costco today, monument to American capitalistic excess (no, I'm not going to launch into a diatribe on American capitalistic excess--calm down). There's something a little creepy about being surrounded by towering structures stuffed with crates of food that come in gargantuan, mastadon-sized portions, especially if you've just been listening to an NPR report on starvation in the Sudan or a homeless man with no teeth is panhandling on the street outside.

I always feel a bit disgusted at our own voraciousness; disoriented by the blaring electronics displays and a muddle of a million too-loud conversations in the cavernous hanger, and the dizzying churn of endlessly circling elderly shoppers with elephantine carts; and guilty over my own good fortune and blessings. But still, I am there shopping, as much a part of the problem as anyone else. Story of my life, really. And it's not like we don't burn through two gallons of milk every three days, or a five-pound mortar of cheese each month, but still... I used to get the same feeling when Garrett and I would go slumming at Home Town Buffet in Spokane (average customer weight: 348 lbs. Including children). It's not so much that we're wasteful; it's that we think nothing of--indeed, relish--wallowing in indulging our every possible appetite and consider ourselves deprived if somehow we can't do so at will.

I was there to pick up supplies for the boy's fourth birthday party Saturday (their actual birthday was yesterday), which I consider a legitimate excuse. Boy, nothing says "fun" like "24 count institution sliced hot dog buns," complete with prison cafeteria generic packaging. On the other end, the chicken dinos (this is another symptom of what I was referring to earlier--what human needs chicken shaped into dinosaurs?) have bright, colorful orange packaging with multi-colored dinosaurs having fun on the box--it even says "Yummy" in a bright red circle, in case you were worried you were buying the vomitous kind by accident. In this case, though, nothing says "fun" like "seasoned and fully cooked nugget-shaped chicken breast patty fritters" (no, really).

And nothing says "funny" like the same joke repeated ad nauseam on a blog, eh?

My only entertainment during this trip was one of those children who has a cry like one of Godzilla's monstrous foes. I don't know what causes this strange ability--did they have their windpipes crushed in delivery? But you've probably heard them; instead of a normal cry or whining, they somehow manage drawn-out screeches that begin and end with jarring suddenness, a little pocket-sized Gaos their parents can use to scare the neighbors. Frightening but distracting, which was a good way to end a Costco trip, actually.

Thankfully my baby doesn't have a cry like that.

The Voiceover Story, Part 2: Hakuna Matata

Warning: This post is another interminable installment of blather about my voicework. The story began in the previous post, so if you've got a lot of time on your hands you can read about the background to this post there.

So despite the hugely long post to be found below, I never really did get to the issue that inspired the whole deal in the first place. As mentioned there, I've been training on the engineering side of the sound booth for a few weeks, along with Deb and Mary, two delightful ladies who started at the school at the same time I did (we attended the same introductory seminar, actually, though we didn't formally meet and start hanging out until some months later), under the tutelage of Chuck, the man with the voice we all wish we had. We learned the basics of recording with the equipment at the studio and celebrated our one year anniversary of attending Voicetrax classes (our toast was that we'd actually have a few paying gigs by next year).

The training allows us to run the boards and open and close the studio for classes when Samantha is not in attendance--there are a great many guest instructors and not all of them are familiar with the equipment. Not only do you get experience on that end, but you get to sit in on classes for free. We've all been scheduled to engineer for a handful of classes through the end of the year.

I got an e-mail on Friday that Deb and Mary wouldn't be able to make the class they were signed up for this weekend and Chuck invited me to come run the boards. Joanna in her infinite kindness allowed me to go, and I'm quite glad I did. The instructor is the head of voice casting for Disney(!), so had all kinds of stories about what it was like casting for Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, The Emperor's New Groove, and just about every other major movie the Mouse has produced in the past several years; they also do the casting for Miyazaki's pictures and he had many a story about Howl's Moving Castle, which I have still to see. In addition, they cast for all the peripheral work, like video games, audio toys, and the like. They're working now on the casting for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is excessively cool (here's your movie trivia for today: the producers were pushing really heavily for James Earl Jones to be the voice of Aslan, but the studio held out, claiming [quite rightly] that Jones was the voice of Mustafa from The Lion King and you just couldn't have the same voice for both. I know who they cast, but I'm not going to tell without some kind of bribe). He was also just a very nice guy.

In any case, I did pretty well at engineering and, as sometimes happens if you're lucky, there were a couple of moments when I got to get in the booth as though I were a real student. The class focused a good deal on voice-matching and synching sound with video, so they were doing lots of exercises putting student tracks up against Disney animation, which turned out hilariously (I got to provide about two lines for Kuzco from Emperor's New Groove; a bit strange to hear my voice come out rather than David Spade's). He also had them singing, using Disney karaoke CDs. A talented young fellow named Wes had gone in to sing "Hakuna Matata" (you knew that the title would have some explanation here at some point, didn't you?), and he was lacking a Pumbaa to his Timon.

Enter me.

We sang and we rocked. We were far and away the best of the class and we got a good deal of applause as we stepped out of the booth. The instructor was impressed, and that's no bad thing. That's another of the advantages of the Voicetrax classes and the amazing roster of instructors Samantha has gathered--even if you don't come away with excellent performances, you still meet some important folks in the business--having my name known in some capacity by the casting director at Disney, I figure, can't hurt. I've met a slew of producers and agents while at the school, too, so hopefully all these encounters will pay off one day.

All right--that's it for voicework stories for now. I've got a master class on audio books at the end of the month, so I may have to pester you about that then.

The Voiceover Story, Part 1: The Beginning

I pause here to gripe that these blog entries seem to be getting longer and longer. I don't seem to be able to stick to one succinct topic anymore, but must delve into all aspects of my subject and recount tales only peripherally connected. I'm making this one into two separate entries--you've probably already seen the second one. Maybe this fit of long posts will pass; until then, strap in and hold on.

As mentioned seemingly endlessly here, I've been taking voiceover classes for the past year or so. The school is called Voicetrax, run by the amazing Samantha Paris, who is quite nearly the sweetest person I've ever met. She's had a bizillion voiceover credits, most famously as Roxie of the Misfits on from Jem and the Holograms, a delightful '80s cartoon which I've actually never seen but which seems to be a perfect representative of the genre (thanks, Hasbro!). She's one of those people who seemingly never sleeps and will wear herself ragged working for her students. She ran the San Francisco Voicetrax school for nearly twenty years and tried to retire to Palm Springs, but couldn't hack relaxation so started a second school in Rancho Mirage about two years ago. It is there that I attend classes about once a month on various aspects of voiceover work--animation, narration, radion and television commercials, video games, and a great many others. The emphasis is always on the idea that voiceover is just another form of acting, only one in which your appearance can't count against you (and a good thing, too...). This means that most of the classes are much like acting classes, which are wonderful to be a part of again.

I came to Voicetrax through a miraculous set of circumstances, actually. I was driving to a day of summer school last year, feeling burnt out and desperate because it just seemed like I wasn't doing what I was meant to in this life (see my previous entry on this subject if you're a masochist with a lot of time on your hands). I prayed as I drove that God would show me what He had for me, would lead me in the direction I was meant to go. I even had the gall to pray that He'd give me a sign that day (patience is only occasionally one of my virtues).

I arrived at Valley, walked into my office, turned on the radio, and suddenly I was listening to an interview with Samantha on our local NPR affiliate (KVCR (run out of our school, actually) about her school in the desert and an introductory seminar being offered later that week. I felt like I'd been smacked with a 2x4 upside the head. I attended the seminar and was hooked. Joanna knew I was serious when I reported that I had volunteered to be part of a demonstration during the seminar without knowing what I was going to have to do. That's a big deal for a cautious fellow like myself.

The miraculous turns of events continued and have done since. I really wanted to attend the school but the classes can be pricey (they're fairly inexpensive by industry standards, actually, but they would set us back a significant amount. I wasn't sure where that money would come from and I was feeling nearly frantic, trying to figure out what I owned that I could pawn or what organs I could sell when a calm came over me, and the thought occured to me that if God had really lead me that far, He'd find a way for me to take the classes.

Lo, and the very next week I heard from Community Christian College, offering to let me teach a class there once a week. The payment wasn't much, but it was just about enough to cover my classes. They've asked me back four times, each time providing the funds for further courses--and I've finally gotten to teach some lit classes, so that's nearly worth it on its own.

Go ahead, skeptics--scoff. Feel free. Doesn't bother me. Attibute it to chance and serendipity if you'd like, but I know from whence these blessings came.

On top of all that, for some unaccountable reason Samantha believes like the dickens in me. Can't quite figure that one out, but she's gone out of her way to help me along and seems to think highly of my prospects. She's also had me start training on the engineering, which is pretty useful and fun--it also lets me sit in on other classes without having to pay for them (which, I suspect, may be why she suggested I do the training in the first place, as funds were pretty short this summer).

As well as Samantha, I've had classes with a good many famous (well, in the industry, anyway) folk, including Susan Blu (who was Granny Smurf[!] and appeared in seemingly in every cartoon from 1980 to 1990, including The Transformers and James Bond, Jr. and now produces a thousand other cartoons), Pat Fraley (Cousin Itt from the Addams Family movies and many cartoon credits, including The Tick), Thom Pinto (of a whole load of national commercials, Batman: The Animated Series, and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law), Bob Symons (narrator extrordinaire--his is the voice of the audio tour of the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas), and a gaggle of others. I've made some great friends in the classes and I've not had a bad one yet. I even recorded a commercial for local radio out in the desert which played on a dozen or so stations, so I've got one non-union acting credit to my name.

I'm not positive where all this is headed. I know that performing has been fantastic and that I've gotten a lot of encouragement; Bob really likes my narration and Pat has been terrifically enthusiastic about my potential for books on audio. But like everything in my life, I'm uncertain. I've had my bad days and my setbacks. My constant prayer throughout this process has been for God to help me keep my eyes on Him and not on the outcome of any particular class or audition. I'm just far too unstable to be ruled by my feelings or personal desires, so letting each day's successes or failures guide my decisions would be madness.

My major goal is to produce a demo CD and get an agent, from whence I can (Lord willing) begin getting parts. And Sam doesn't think that is too far away. I'll keep you updated.

Magic!

So the "rah rah" portion of today wasn't too onerous. The speaker was Billy Riggs, a "motivational speaker" who does a whole performance with humor and magic (probably the best part of the show) woven with some pithy commentary on teaching. It contained, as such presentations usually do, a fair level of corny jokes and cheesy smarm (mmmmm.... corn and cheese...), but I didn't have to make animal noises and several of his illusions really were quite impressive. All in all, not bad. You can check him out here if you're in need of a speaker for your large corporation.

As with all pithily inspiring things, I did feel some pull to try to apply what Riggs was saying to my own life (it's a weakness, I admit). While his comments about the psychological barriers that keep us from reaching our potential was intriguing (as obviously I've got a lot of them that I don't even know about--otherwise, I'd be running the world by now), it was his discussion of passion that made the deepest impression on me, though perhaps not in the way he would have expected. He suggested that the best educators are those with a passion for teaching--it was their first thought in the morning and their last as they go to bed. They spend their free time inventing ways to improve their work and reach out to each student in any way they can to change that student's life.

I found myself agreeing with him wholeheartedly. I also realized (again, as I've realized sporadically for the past few years) that that's not me. I am not a great teacher. Sure, I can entertain a class and impart a lesson; I can help people with a concept or make them think about things in a new way. But as a committed educator dedicated to the betterment of my students, I fail. I am, at best, a mediocre teacher, my delightful classroom performance balanced by my terrible out-of-class follow-up and my nonexistent planning. Teaching simply isn't the most important thing in my life, nor can I make it so. Nor do I want to be, really. I have, as I've mentioned, a passion for my subject much greater than I have a passion for students. If the classes I taught were more in line with that--if I were teaching literature or creative writing, for instance--I think I'd be better. But that's a maybe. It's callous and cold-hearted, but I must come to grips with reality.

That, of course, has me thinking about what my passions really are, and that leads me to divulge to you the secrets of my Twenty Year Plan. Don't go stealing it now, 'cause it's mine.

As the bible sayeth, we should always preface our plans with, "If God wills it," or something like, so that's how I begin. My passions for the past few years have been three: writing (theoretically), voicework, and, after reading a shockingly powerful book by Michael Card called Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity, the founding of a Christian artists' community (someday I'll write a post on exactly what that might entail).

So in the near future, Lord willing, I might cut a demo CD and send it off to agents in the hopes of picking up some voicework; if that goes well enough, ideally I'd like to get out of the teaching game, at least full time (I'd still enjoy teaching perhaps one class as an adjunct, especially at Community Christian College). This, ideally, would also lead to my writing going a bit better, as the voicework takes much less planning and outside work than the teaching thing (wherein I spend approximately 48.3 hours grading per class per assignment per day). I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but Stephen King suggests that despite his myriad jobs--industrial launderer, clerk, reporter, what have you--the only time in his life he couldn't sit down and crank out a five-hundred page novel of an afternoon was when he was teaching. That bodes pretty ill for me.

And if these payed off, then my long-range dreamy little dream is to purchase land, most likely in the northwest, and establish the aforementioned Christian artists' community wherein Christian artists (surprisingly enough) could congregate, work together, and receive mentoring and feedback on their work. There are a thousand other possibilities associated with that, like offering classes to young artists, serving as a waystation for missionary families, producing a Christian arts magazine... To be doing voicework and writing and helping to run such a place would be a dream beyond my ability to hope for it. In any case, if this project were up and heading somewhere in twenty years, I would not be displeased.

I rarely share such large-scale hopes as these, but I figure if I have my small group pulling for me, or at least thinking about the possibility on occasion, that might not be any bad thing.

Last Day of Freedom

I have to head in to school for the start of the fall semester tomorrow.

Read that again.

I have to head in to school for the start of the fall semester tomorrow.

August 12? When in the world did school start beginning in the middle of August? August is obviously and legally summer. It is immoral and unethical to begin classes during it. I clearly remember the first day of class being held after Labor Day, and my memory is, as always, the basis for all rational life. Heck, every university I attended started at the end of September; this seems entirely reasonable and right to me.

I shouldn't complain about having two weeks between summer school and the new semester, and how that seems abyssmally short, but it surely does seem so. After grading, preparing for my next set of classes, and everything else, it hardly seems I've left.

Tomorrow is what my mother calls the "rah rah" day, when you get together throughout the day to hear administrators and beaureaucrats go over what they want from you for the year and their great accomplishments from the previous year. I can see that that has some value, in a theoretical sense, but in actual experience it always turns out to be an enormous waste of time that leaves us all feeling annoyed and ashamed. Last year they had a speaker come to talk about humor in the workplace; the speaker had grown people making animal noises at one another. I was paired with a chiseled older man from the aviation department. We were not experiencing humor. The only laughter to be heard was the nervous tittering of people feeling enormously embarrassed over being forced to act like children for no good reason. I'm sure the district administrators thought it was wonderfully enlightening, but it was merely soul sucking.

After the all-district meeting, we meet again as a school, and then we meet as a department. If I'm lucky, I may get 23 minutes to actually prepare.

I'm not that enthused, is the idea.

On the happier front, we have had a good two weeks, with trips to Mammoth and San Diego worked in there. The boys and the baby have been crazy, but have adapted remarkably well (especially Madeline, seing as how a five-day vacation to Mammoth constitutes about 1/12 of her total life outside the womb so far). Since my fans have been demanding it, I thought I'd put up a picture of our newest little monkey:



And if you don't think she's just the cutest minute simian around, you need your eyes examined. Or simply removed. (You are allowed to think that relatives or your own children are as cute, but no cuter, than my child.)











And, so they don't feel left out, here is my favorite recent picture of Denver and Poncho:


















They're up to wacky hijinks, as you can tell.

Next post from "work," most likely.

Huzzah.

I'm Still Up!

Okay, so this didn't make it into the twenty-four-hour period we label as "Wednesday." But it's still in my Wednesday, as I'm still awake. It's been a crazy kind of day, and I got sucked into a late Mexican Train Dominoes game with Joanna, Kathie, and Jen which went on for, I am fairly certain, thirty-five hours. Add onto that the literally heart-stopping peanut-butter-sugar-chocolate popcorn Jen made, and you've got a recipe for late-night weirdness.

So this will be short, as I'd like to catch a few minutes' sleep before the boys awaken me (when I'm home, it's my job to rise with the boys--Joanna is no early bird and my work days are hard on her).

The main thought I have for today is you just don't know what fun is until you've had to give your child an enema. That is, you can't really appreciate "fun" until you've experienced its polar opposite. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it's pretty high among the most unpleasant. Poor kid was suffering from the dietary madness that comes with all the traveling we've been doing this past week. I now know far more about a child's digestive tract than I had ever imagined myself knowing. I had never envisioned having a great deal of knowledge in that arena at all, really. Thankfully everyone's fine now, and I shall spare you further details as I like you and don't want to ruin your appetite.

That is all for now. Sweet non-colonic-related dreams, all.

With What Can I Get Away?

It's sad that I had to re-edit the title of this post to be gramatically correct--didn't want that preposition danging at the end of the thing, even though that would sound better. I'm so sad.

The reference, though, is perhaps sadder. It occurred to me this morning that I live my life so as to "get away with" as much as possible. That is, instead of living in as upright a fashion as I ought to, I live in as upright a fashion as is minimially necessary to avoid having the whole thing collapse.

That was much too complicated. Let's start again, shall we?

I live as though the really important thing about my life is what people observe of it. If I think I can get away with something without being caught, I do it. This is not stuff that is overtly sinful or illegal (most of the time, anyway...), but rather just things I'd be embarrassed to have discovered if I found myself caught on tape. For instance, yesterday and today I've been on my own with Joanna and the monkeys out of the house. I had two goals: to get ready for classes and clean the house. I am currently at school and just about to engage in class preparation (no, really), but I got very little done yesterday in either regard, mainly because there was no one there to see me goofing off. Instead of doing what I ought to have been doing, and doing a good job of it, I am (as always) doing the absolute minimum required so that I will neither lose my job nor get into great trouble when the wife returns. That also means I'm feeling guilty and harried now trying to do what I had ample time to accomplish earlier; I'll end up doing a poor job on both fronts and feeling bad about that, too. And yesterday was spent in a kind of mild guilty haze over what I wasn't doing, but the haze was not powerful enough to move me into action. Really, I wouldn't put up with this from one of my students or my children, and yet here I am. It's pitiful.

It's the same with most things I do: teaching and other professional obligations, housework, spending time with my family, writing... I might not even begrudge myself my bad behavior if I were using the time constructively, but I fritter it away on trivialities and laziness. If I were really writing or practicing my voicework or recording books on audio or anything slightly useful, I'd like myself more. Not a lot more, but at least a bit.

This also makes me out as something of a liar--if I really wanted the things I say I do, I'd be doing more to achieve those goals. Which makes all this moping and self-pity that much more reprehensible and indefensible. My great hope is that some of this sense of self-awareness and realization about how I operate will lead me to change those habits that lead me to this point. Even more important are vast amounts of prayer and seeking God. Oh, wait--that's another area I need to work on...

ps--See? This is the sort of stuff you get when I post daily: my convoluted self-deprecation. Happy now? Huh?

Contractual Obligation Post

Because I promised to post daily, here I am doing so. As I suspected, no one noticed that I had posted again last time, but that's okay--let's see how many of these I can slip in before the massive crowds return and raise the property value of my blog so greatly that I can no longer afford the rent.

Sadly, that kind of sloppy free association is the kind of thing you can expect if I'm going to get material up here daily. You Have Been Warned.

Right now I'm watching a show on the Discovery Health Channel about a two-year-old girl with such horrific facial deformities that I would not believe she was an actual child if I had not been shown that she is so--her injuries make her look like a special effect from out of a horror movie workshop. My heart is broken for her and her parents and all they've gone through, and it makes my petty whining seem... well, petty. Man. We are so blessed that Caleb and Nathaniel are healthy and terrific, and it makes me feel like a cad for grousing about how they drive me crazy (more and more these days, but they're also getting more fun to play with, so there are trade-offs), and we are blessed beyond reason in Madeline's health and general good temper.

That makes for poor blogging, though. How am I to convey my philosophical angst and confusion of life if I'm busy feeling grateful and magnanamously looked after? Well, I do feel guilty for still wanting more than I have, so there's that. As long as there's some difficulty for me to complain of, life seems normal.

At any rate, I'll try to put up something slightly more edifying tomorrow--I've got classes to prepare for (I can't believe our classes begin in one week--I go in on Friday for our "welcome back" day, which is slightly less annoying than being flayed alive and set in front of a powerful fan with a constant stream of powdered salt being fed into it, but only slightly) and the house to clean while Joanna and her friend Jen and all the kiddos are off in San Diego, but I'll do what I can.

The Return and the Challenge

Well, Chris' constant shaming has served its purpose. Here I am, blogging once again. It's kind of creepy to look back over a blog started in January with the intention of writing daily and finding six posts in the last eight months, three of which were in January. Yikes. So I don't really have a blog--I have an extremely minor museum of extremely minor thoughts.

This, then, is the return. Here I am, typing away once more. There are half a dozen people who care in any sense about this, but somehow it's important to me. Now the question is how long it will take anyone to notice that there has been a new post.

What am I to do, then? This begs the larger questions of, "Why have a blog at all?" What's the point?

Practice, for one. Perhaps if I can get myself used to typing reguarly, I'll be better about it in other venues as well. Of course, it could simply eat up what little writing energy I have leaving me none for other works, but since I don't write other things at this point anyway, putting even a few paltry words down counts as a major improvement.

Secondly, it serves as a bit of updating on life. Our little circle keeps up with one another through these things--whether it's Devin's mad political scrawls and random reports of amazing opportunities; Dan's quiet reflections on music and performance; Laura's intricate crafting works and goals for the future; Christina's rollercoaster school and family life; or Chris' hourly updates on the state of his appliances. And I read these things with abandon, checking in at least daily to see what's up and what comments may have been made. It's like a little social gathering. And I don't want to be left out, I suppose.

So the "challenge" part of the title is the challege I pose myself (and you) to actually post. For reals. I intend at this point to put up something each day, because I need the discipline if nothing else. And mockery, abuse, sarcasm, and personal attacks are all motivating. If I am to succeed in this, I'll need your help as I have no work ethic of my own. Checking in will give me the edge I need, I think, to keep up the work. As mentioned early on in the blog, I can't guarantee that it will be interesting or useful, but it will exist, and I think there's some value in that. If you agree, I'd appreciate your aid.

So keep watch on this space. Soon I'll yammer on about our vacation to Mammoth, my voicework, my dreams of Washington, my new teaching assignments, my new baby girl (cutest of all babies), my new twin boys (okay, the old ones, but they're turning four next week so they're still pretty new), and all kinds of other entertaining things.

Until then.

It's All About Me, Baby

As per agreement, I hereby post the following and invite all who dare to take the challenge and, as I believe the young kids say, "get all up in my face." C'mon--you know you want to.

1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
5. Describe me in one word.
6. What was your first impression?
7. Do you still think that way about me now?
8. What reminds you of me?
9. If you could give me anything what would it be?
10. How well do you know me?
11. When's the last time you saw me?
12. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
13. Are you going to put this on your blog and see what I say about you?

Books, Books, and Books

I'm on a reading kick. I'm always wanting to read, but for the past long while it seems like life and work were always precluding me from it. Between teaching, grading, and committees at school, then getting home to help out with the boys all evening, plus teaching an extra class and taking my voiceover classes on weekends and some nights, when free time rolled around all I could do was slouch helplessly on the couch, the willing thrall of TV (or occasionally the X-Box).

But we ditched the TV (again--we'll see how long this time), and since her pregnancy started Joanna has been on a voracious reading regimen. Her demand for good books (especially good fantasy fiction and not my dull treatises of Old English and medieval literature or Greek philosophy) quickly outstripped my personal library, so she's been getting books from me as presents for the last several holidays (St. Nicholas Day books, Christmas books, Valentine's Day books, Knute Day books...). She tears through a novel in two days if the boys cooperate by not killing one another, so her reading volume has been impressive. It's inspiring.

Coupled with that was my desire to go back and read some of my favorite fiction in order to kick-start the ol' writing engine; this has the added benefit of allowing me to examine these texts more critically to see how the author does what he or she does so well and makes me mad with jealousy. It's been nice to get back to reading regularly again, though I admit that my teaching and grading are starting to suffer (how can student autobiographical essays compare the the unutterable horrors and mysteries of Lavondyss?

I'm a writing snob (and a movie snob, and a music snob, and... okay, I'll stop there) and find most fantasy fiction to be pretentious, hokey, overdone, and/or annoying regurgitations of cliched themes, characters, and plots, so it's not easy to make my list. My heart goes dead reading Harry Potter novels--the writing is clean enough, but there's nothing really new, nothing that grabs me and makes me hunger for more. I'm annoyed by the fact that in the Potter universe, all you need to be a wizard is a store-bought wand and a few phrases of basic adulterated Latin. There's no magic in Harry Potter magic; it's a mishmash of fantasy and fable tropes and ideas from better works tied on to the back of a (let's admit it) fairly bland adolescent boy. Sorry, Potter fans--I just can't join you, try though I have. I'm of the opinion that any book based on D&D can safely be ripped apart by wild book-eating yaks the moment it comes off the presses. Galleys of books which will eventually end up with half-dressed, heaving, glistening women warriors on the cover should be burned before they ever reach the presses in the first place.

So I thought I'd share with you, dear readers, some of the books that I've been perusing lately and those that I think are the cream of the fantasy fiction crop.

Carpe Jugulum, Night Watch, and Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett--I'm an old Pratchett fan from way back, and it's fun to watch his Discworld evolve over time, watching characters from his various cycles grow and change (or, comfortingly, not change). I give a cheer whenever Granny Weatherwax shows up, and I wait each novel for Death to put in his requisite appearance. I have to admit that Pratchett goes stale for me from time to time, as a lot of his books have the same rhythm and sensibility--they just run out of funny, after a while. But going back to them after a break is always reviving, and his books go down easily. I'm still partial to his older work (Mort, Guards, Guards!, most of the witches books (for Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, mostly), Pyramids, and Small Gods, especially), though I was quite taken with Monstrous Regiment recently, and I've found a new favorite in Wee Free Men. The Nac Mac Feegle are coming close to being my all-time favorite characters from any fantasy work. They put in an appearance in Carpe Jugulum, but Wee Free Men and the "sequel," Hat Full of Sky entirely belong to them and our plucky heroine, Tiffany Aching. Any time a band of incredibly strong, fast, and rowdy blue-skinned, red-haired, six-inch tall magical Celts wants to come by my house and brawl with our squirrels, they are welcome (though they'd almost certainly be mortally disappointed in our lack of liquor). I've been shouting, "Ach, crivens!" at the slightest opportunity, and not soon shall I forget the pictsies' war cry of They can take our lives, but they'll never take our trousers! I'm thinking of giving the boys new nicknames like Rob Anybody and Slightly-Bigger-than-Wee-Jock-but-Not-as-Big-as-Big-Jock Jock, though I doubt Joanna would approve of nicknaming our daughter Daft Wullie... I'm shocked to find these listed as "young adult" books, as I enjoyed them as much as any other Discworld novels.

On the writing side, I realized long ago that I can't come close to Pratchett's style of humor. His comic timing and asides are extremely well done and stay witty, even when you can see them coming (though much of their charm comes from the fact that often you don't). I am not as fond of his consistent reference to the modern world and the subsequent effect it has on his fantasy world--it sometimes feels as if he's introducing new technology or social phenomena into Discworld just so he can make some political or cultural commentary, and that sits badly with me. These sometimes reduces his work to simple cleverness, which can't sustain my interest in a work for any great length of time. However, Pratchett's ability to weave together various storylines seemingly effortlessly, his sometimes inspired use of minor foreshadowing to bring about an "Aha!" moment later in the novel, and his fantastic dialogue are all inspirational (or would be to a better writer; for me, as always, it's just intimidating and depressing. But that's another post).

The Innkeeper's Song and Giant Bones, by Peter S. Beagle--I stumbled on The Innkeeper's Song as I was heading up to Eastern Washington University to start my master's degree--I needed a good book in the evenings and the cover art caught my eye. I've been a huge Beagle fan ever since reading it over the course of three nights; it was only later that I learned that most people know him from the cartoon of The Last Unicorn, which I have still never seen (I have yet to read the book, either, though I own it now).

I was tremendously impressed by The Innkeeper's Song, one of the only books I've ever read that made me cry at the end (and still does, actually, whenever I reread it--I'm normally highly resistant to all human emotion). Skipping among half a dozen character points of view, the story is affecting and involving in the extreme. There are a few scenes of frank sexuality (prompting Devin, to whom I had lent the book, to call and complain--though I note you still have the book, sir...) and I agree with some reviewers that occasionally the main characters are too formidable, but overall the book floored me.

I was especially impressed by the depth of the world Beagle creates; everything feels real, and references to cities, to peoples, to tales and songs and ideas are all handled deftly, becoming part of the background without drawing attention to themselves in big bold letters as SETTING DETAILS. I actually included this on my reading list for my master's thesis for that reason. Admittedly this can be overdone at times, but on the whole it is entirely convincing. Those of us always stymied by an obsessive need to define every aspect of a fantasy world before writing often blame J.R.R. Tolkien for our inability to write; imagine my chagrin, then, when Beagle, who comes as close to Tolkien's depth as anyone I've read, revealed that he planned out literally nothing of his world, and only filled in names of places and people he made up on the spot. Curses--another excuse gone.

Giant Bones is a series of short stories set in the same world, and they're also great. They are especially notable in that each has an entirely different style and tone. "The Last Song of Sirit Byar" is another story that can bring on the tears though it's got one of the gruffest narrators you're likely to meet; "The Magician of Karakosk" is a classic fantasy story done with incredible heart; "The Tragical History of the Jiril's Players" is a comic opera of medieval proportions; "Lal and Soukyan" brings back the only returning characters from The Innkeeper's Song and feature the only two elderly fantasy heroes I can recall who aren't wizards; and "Choushi Wai's Story" (told by a character from another story, no less) is a fable in the classical sense but still manages to surprise in the telling. Terrific stuff.

The Wizard of Earthsea books, by Ursula K. LeGuin--It had been a long time since I read the original Earthsea trilogy, recommended at the time by Chris Slater and Dan, and I recalled having enjoyed them but not much beyond that. There were wizards, and an island, and boats, and that was about all I could dredge up. I had a copy of the trilogy and pointed Joanna toward it--when she thoroughly devoured them, I decided to give them another read.

I'm always afraid to reread things I liked when I was younger for fear they'll turn out to be awful. This was the case with the works of Piers Anthony, for example--other than a few of the early Xanth novels (I still like A Spell for Chameleon), his stuff is really bad--fascinating to a twelve-year-old, yes, but they lose their luster quickly as adolescent interest in being titillated dries up (there's a whole treatise on male prurience here, but I'm not going to touch it). Terry Brooks' Landover novels have the same effect, as does Jack Chalker's River Gods series. I'm nervous about looking over anything by David Eddings again, as they were pretty borderline the first time I read them (and yet, horrifyingly, they are the novels I think most resemble something I would actually write. If being unimpressed with a writer most like you isn't a buzzkill, I don't know what is).

Imagine my delight, then, at finding the Earthsea books to be a good deal better than I remembered them. There are several more books now past the original trilogy (including Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea, and The Other Wind, which Joanna has burned through but I have yet to read), but I found myself caught in rereading the very first novel and haven't gotten past it yet. I read it through, then immediately turned back and started reading it again--The Innkeeper's Song is the only other book I've ever done this with. I'm trying to force myself to read Wizard of Earthsea slowly, deconstructing how in the world LeGuin created such an involving epic with such tremendous style. Her ability to weave in image with just a few phrases, her skill at creating dialogue that is at once iconic and believable, and her talent for conveying complex plot and character issues in a short space is nothing short of amazing. I have to admit I'm not a great fan of her other works (though, in truth, the only other of her works I've read have been her science fiction, a genre with which it is much harder to please me), but I was powerfully struck by her work. If you haven't read these before, do so right now. It's okay--I'll wait.

The Gunslinger, by Stephen King--By far my favorite work of King's to date. King gets a bad rap in literary circles; he was thoroughly reviled in my master's writing program for being "commercial," and that's a fair accusation. But King is, above all else, a terrific storyteller and you have to give the man credit for that. I've read several of his horror novels, and I had a great time reading The Stand in all its thousand-page glory, but I wouldn't list myself as a fan if it weren't for this little beauty (and his book about writing, but that'll go in another post).

By far my favorite of the Dark Tower books (thought admittedly I only read the first three), The Gunslinger is dark, enigmatic, and spooky. Again, I seem to have a particular liking for deep histories hinted at, vast tales touched upon lightly, and King has that all sewn up here. How terrific is it that we have essentially a cowboy in a fantasy setting, yet it never feels cheesy? That we can have wizards and demons, yet the player at the honkey tonk piano is playing "Hey, Jude"? Roland is one of the darkest "heroes" you're likely to find in fiction, but we're still on his side. How many authors could have their main character gun down an entire town and still have you rooting for them by the end, even if you're not a fan of Steven Segal and Jean Claude Van Damme? The austere characterization, the cryptic and clipped writing, and the sense of real human emotion are what carry this book so well.

I understand that there's a revised version published that takes away some of the mystery and ties The Gunslinger more closely to the following books, and I consider that a great pity. I did not care for the later books nearly as much, mainly because they became too big, too grand in scope and patchwork in quality, and lost a lot of the mystery that was so thrilling at the beginning. This nifty little dark tale of one man on a quest, filled with unfathomable depths of which we only glimpse the surface, remains my favorite King novel. If only he'd write more stuff without really knowing where he was headed.

Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock--Another work that I had read so long ago that I could only remember a sense of liking it without being able to pin down many other details. A guy exploring a modern forest that generates mythagos, archetypal figures from ages past. Another book I recommended to Joanna and she enjoyed, I also found this work stood the test of time relatively well. It was clumsier than I remembered--in this early work, Holdstock often overstates what seems obvious, or forces his main character to draw conclusions that are clearly erroneous only to bring on the obvious answer later as a shock--but this book was still a fine read. A complex and satisfying work overall, and I look forward to rereading the other works in the trilogy, Lavondyss and The Hollowing. If I recall aright, Dan liked these a good deal, too. I haven't read his other works, starting with Celtika, though now I'd like to.

And well done if you've made it this far. I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts on these books, and even more delighted if you have recommendations in the same vein. I suppose I ought to do some work now.

Ach, crivens!

Long Gone

Darn blog thing.

It's a tough row to hoe. Like almost everything in my life, I'm torn when considering the blog. I want to be better about posting. I enjoy typing. Words are nice. But somehow getting on here and actually keeping up with this just doesn't happen. I have a long list of excuses: the start of a new semester and the continuation of the Winter quarter at CCC; the bad weather early in the month which meant more time on the road and frequent power outages; the boys really coming into their "three-ness" and being weasels in the weaseliest of ways. But as I so often point out to my students, "excuses" are not the same as "reasons."

I think there's something living in me that doesn't want to see me write. I don't know what it is or why it's there or why it won't leave me alone. I loathe it with a passion unequaled by much else in my life. It feels like my whole being is yearning out to write and this little hobgoblin beats it out of me every time. I can't tell you how much time I waste on insignifica--reading the 1,000th bad movie review on any of a dozen websites, reading magazine articles I'm not particularly interested in, playing solitaire on the computer (solitaire, of all things! What the heck? A la Comic Book Guy, could there be any greater waste of time and consciousness?). Every day I start out with a fervent desire to write, and every night I go to bed frustrated and bitter that another day has passed without me penning a single word. Surely, I have a cartload of important things to do during the day (teach, grade, interact with Joanna and the boys, keep up the house), but I also just waste so much time. I seem desperate to find anything to do other than write, even as I know that's what I most want to do. Grrr!

Is it possible to be built for one thing and be utterly unable to do that one thing? That's like taking the time and effort to build a windmill and then tying one blade to the ground so it can't spin. What's the point? Sometimes I get motivated and read books about writing, and make plans about writing, and even write in here as a kind of substitute for the kind of writing I really want to be doing. The one thing I never actually do is write. Sad, really.

The possible scenarios:

(1) I was never meant to write. My own hubris or Satanic influence has convinced me I need to do it. My struggles are my conscience and the Holy Spirit trying to get me to cut out this foolishness while my own pride wants desperately to hang on to the image of myself as a writer.

(2) I was meant to write, and the forces of laziness and fear (and that ol' Satanic influence again) that keep me back from my God-given mandate to use those talents I have in writing. My struggles arise from me fighting against what I know in my soul I ought to be doing.

(3) I'm kind of a messed-up guy with no motivation or work ethic. I have talent and desire but I can't figure out how to put them to good use.

(4) I'm more in love with the idea of being a writer than I am with writing. James Michener summed this up nicely: "Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print." Is this me? Yikes.

I know (3) and (4) are definitely a part of my problem. The question is if (1) or (2) resemble the truth in any sense and if so, which one? I've given my writing over to God because it's just too painful for me to deal with these days. I've prayed that if I'm not meant to write that He'll take away my desire to do so, and if I am meant to that He'll show me to be dedicated and motivated and devoted to the task. And I sit still in the same limbo I've been inhabiting for... oh, let's say ten years, to be charitable.

Imagine that every day you have the chance to spend time with the person you love most. Every morning you wake up and look over at that person, and smile, and promise them you'll do something that day. And every day, you fritter away your time on petty amusements and frivolous monkeyshine, while your beloved stands there, waiting. And every night when you go to bed, you curse yourself for having missed out on another day with him or her, and vow to make tomorrow different.

Imagine that every day.

Not a bad metaphor for how I treat God, actually. Now I feel doubly guilty.

This is a long, self-pitying rant, I realize. The scary thing is it might not change a thing about how I live my life, even though I can see the problem and know of the solution. How would we feel about someone who has a disease and can see the treatment and knows what to do to get rid of the sickness and could avail themselves of the cure but simply doesn't? I would find myself lacking sympathy for that person, which suggests that I deserve none myself. Most likely true.

Grrrrr.

"You can't want to be a writer, you have to be one."
--Paul Theroux

Snow and I

I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about snow at the moment.

We're buried right now. A good three feet of snow lies all around, higher where it's mounded up on our stairs. The berms are up to my chin on the road. We've got a couple of days of respite, and then there's more snow for half a week (if the meteorologists are on target, which is always a gamble).

I've been shoveling snow for four days. Yesterday and today, I was shoveling ice, hurling 20-pound chunks of the stuff across the road because there's no more room on our side unless I want to toss it onto our roof. I'm kind of tired of it, and generally just tired (which probably speaks more to my being out of shape than my hard work, but still). Part of me, at these moments, thinks that it's crazy to live in a place where this is necessary.

But I can't imagine living in a place where there wasn't snow. We get it relatively rarely up here (say, a couple of times a month during the winter), and whenever we don't have snow, I find myself gazing enviously at the parts of the country on the weather map that are being deluged. I love the white stuff despite what a pain it is. I don't know if it's some holdover from my childhood (when it was just fun and didn't require a lot of effort on my part to deal with), or some odd masochistic part of my personality, but even at its worst I can't wish for less snow.

I even like it despite the difficulties it causes here in the mountains--in fact, I like it far more. In Toronto and Spokane, I still got the snow, but the flatness was depressing.

Friends of ours have been trying to lure us up to the northwest, which is an area I am seriously in love with, especially the west coast of Oregon and Washington (which is where they are, actually). Everything about it--the 230 cloudy days a year, the fantastic amount of rainfall, the average high temperature of 65 degrees--makes my hair tingle. But the lack of (1) steepness (no mountains or even high hills to speak of) and (2) snow, or the possibility of snow, are serious hinderances. Not insurmountable ones if I could find a good job, but hinderances all the same.

There's something about the mountains, about the landscape and climate itself that I seem dependent on. I always miss it when I'm away and I rarely feel the urge to be anywhere else. There are many things I would modify about our mountains were I given the power: much higher rainfall, more dense foliage, more animals, fewer people, more geographical distance from major cities. The Rockies and the Cascades strongly appeal to me for the abundance of these things. But I feel blessed to live where I do, and to have lived here most of my life.

Now I really am rambling. The upshot is that, despite a desire to complain about a lot of shoveling, I wouldn't trade it. Next time, maybe I'll enthrall you with the internal ethical debate I go through evey time I rev up the snowblower. I know you'll be waiting for that one. I hope tonight finds you wherever you like it most.

In Reference to Resolutions

I found the following PvP comic far too apropos to the last topic to pass up:

PvP for 1/1/05

PvP--a comic revolving around the staff of a gaming magazine ("PvP" stands for "player vs. player," which I didn't know, either, until I read the comic)--is the only online comic I check out regularly. I'm certain there are many more deserving comics out there, but I don't really need more sites into which to get sucked. It's usually fun and sometimes great. Scott Kurtz, the artist, has some odd opinions and seems to be the focus of more than a few debates. Currently, he's offering his online comic free to traditional press papers in exchange for retaining the licensing rights--a very different system than the comics syndicates currently follow and one that has a lot of comic strippers up in arms. No, really.

In any case, take his views with a grain of salt, but the comic is worth checking out, especially if you're a roleplaying or computer game geek.

Auld Lang Syne

I just wanted some title other than Happy New Year!!!!!! :)

Here it is: January 1, 2005. I shall be writing the wrong date on checks for two months. We can now easily divide the date by 5 again--a feat not to be repeated for half a decade. The icy hand of death draws one year nearer (though I'm watching a Twilight Zone marathon as I type this, so the pure nostalgia is making that threat seem less onerous--besides, Death will probably offer me some strange deal and I'll end up saving myself, but only at the cost of someone dear to me).

That last sentence, by the way, is an example of the sort of thing I'm not editing in this blog. You have my condolences.

I've been mulling over the idea of resolutions this week. I don't know what to think about them these days. The concept of New Year's resolutions seems dull and staid, more of a joke than an actual event, and yet the idea of taking vows at the change of a calendar year has a strong draw for me. I've always been a sucker for ceremony and tradition, and I really want such oaths to mean something. I have, in the past, made very solemn vows upon a New Year's Eve.

And not one resolution have I kept in these many years. It's almost become an exercise in self-doubt and defeat, a chance for me to feel bad about myself rather than providing goals for which to strive. Not, as is probably clear by now, I need any such excuse.

I am therefore putting up this list of... let's call them ideals for 2005. That sounds more flimsy, I realize, than "resolutions," and provides thereby more chance for weasling out of them (like my "near-daily" vow), but what the heck. Perhaps having some degree of accountability to you folks will help me out.

Here, then, in something of an order of importance:

1. Spend more time with God--This seems to be the universal resolution of every Christian I know. Somehow I seem to lose sight of Christ in my daily life, even as I most make an effort to keep Him foremost. I know I need a daily prayer time. In the past I've sought closeness with God for my own ends--as if, were I to spend some requisite time near Him, the things I really want would happen as a result. I realize at this late stage that the closeness with God is the thing I really want. The other stuff is ephemera, I know, but it seems to loom so large in the moment. So some spiritual consistency is my greatest need this year (and beyond, of course).



2. Write!--My wife has more than once suggested that I'm going through my midlife crisis somewhat early. That may well be true. I have felt more strongly in the past months that I am meant to be doing something more, and I am much convinced that that thing is writing. Yet there are few things I avoid more assidiously. I wrote three pages last week--it's the first I've done for non-roleplaying purposes in longer than I can recall. I know Senor Devin has struggled with this in the past regarding his artwork: how can the one thing I most want to do be the one thing I most avoid? Got to get past that. The good news: I've been more inclined this direction in the last few weeks. The bad news: I've yet to do anything about it. Again.



3. Lose Some Weight--Great ooka-mooka, but I'm a large man. These past few years I know I've not been in the shape I should be (really, for most of my life, but it's in the last few years that I've begun to feel it). I feel lifeless and slow, physical exertion is far too taxing, and I'm becoming more self-conscious about it rather than less. I really don't want it to take something drastic (like diabetes or a heart attack) to get me to change my ways. Joanna and I had some luck a few years back (before the boys) with Weight Watchers, so I'm starting that up tomorrow. Well, later today, actually. It's hard to find time to get an exercise routine going, what with the boys to look after and Joanna seeing so little of me anyway, but that's needful, too.



4. Use My Time More Wisely--I do waste so much time. Not just staying-up-until-2am-playing-Halo time, but each actual moment. I spend far too much of my day reading pointless things on the web (I have now read more movie reviews than I have seen actual movies), playing goofy little computer games, staring at the television, or staring off into space, lamenting my inability to get things done. I don't know how one achieves self-discipline without first having self-discipline, but I need to know the secret. Now!

There are gallons more--keeping up the house more, being a better father and husband, working harder on my voiceover training, becoming a more competent and organized teacher--but I'll be surprised if you folk made it this far. I'll end by wishing you all a blessed year full of the things you most need, and that we all become more of the creatures we are intended to be.