Haiku Sunday and Why Go Back To School

People ask me, "Why go back to school, Homemaker Man?  You seem to have it all."
"Is that sarcasm?" I reply defensively.
"Whoa, settle down."  They say
"Whatever," I retort.

Then I continue with a rambling and serpentine explanation even though my initial reaction has long ago brought the conversation to an abrupt end.

I am obscenely lucky.  I have a beautiful, brilliant family and the world's best career.

My house is 120 years old.  There is a lot of shit wrong with it that I just can't fix.  While I have improved a little with that sort of stuff over the years, well . . . If you were to start talking to me while I was fixing something, you would find your tone of voice quickly deteriorating in to a condescending "Wow, there must be something wrong with this guy," tone:

"Oh, what are you fixing?  You're using a hammer?  Well, that's not what I asked, but that's true.  What are you a hammering there?  A wire.  I see.  What?  Yes, you are doing a good job hammering.  Yes, a very good job.  You are very strong.  Yes you are.  I just, are you sure tha . . . Hey!  We don't eat the nails, big guy.  No we don't."

All that would be ok though, if the city we live in weren't so, mmm, let me try to sum it up in a haiku:


Describing my town
How to do it succinctly
Scally caps abound


It is a blue collar, working-class city founded by hard-working Irish and Italian immigrants looking for a better life whose offspring now despise the fact that the town demographic is being so violently and irrevocably changed by the influx of hard-working Brazilian and Hispanic immigrants looking for a better life.

The people here don't like change and they are difficult to reason with because they generally don't trust things like fact or science or reason.

As a quick aside:  It seems that I have become the Town Jew.  Which is pretty cool.  Being the town Jew is a time-honored tradition.   You know, every so often I stay out really late and get way to Jewish and I cause a disturbance and then end up having to sleep it off in the town Jew Tank at the local jail.  Every town has one.

Anyway, being the town Jew really doesn't bother me.  Besides, there is apparently a Jewish veteran's group in town.  I'm looking forward to meeting that guy.

It's the xenophobic, racist nature of the city's long-time residents coupled with their desperate clinging to dead ideas that are slowly suffocating the city that makes us want to move.  If you want a really good analogy, check out my wife's blog .  She actually knows how to think and write and stuff like that.

So, the possibility of selling and moving is one reason why I'm going back to school.  Also, I need to have a viable skill in case for some reason my wife could no longer work.  It's nice at lunch time, but remembering to cut the crusts off the sandwiches just will not pay the bills.

Finally (this has turned out to be a long-assed post), my wife grew up going to Sebago Lake in Maine every summer of her life, and it is a a huge part of who she is.  I'd like to be able to afford a little place for us up there someday  Someplace warm and sunny, on a lake close by Sebago.  Doesn't have to be right on Sebago itself.  Maybe with a fireplace so we can go up on school vacations.  A place that as the kids get a little older, they never ever find out about.  You know, someplace quiet.


2 more hockey rink haikus because I worked there (very early) this morning and I have them and three is an odd number:

Kids arrive early
Tousled hair, eager faces
Parents, not so much

Rain spits fitfully
on empty, oil-slicked streets
And one lone asshole



Verbosely yours,

Homemaker Man