Leadership

Leadership is important. Without leadership, there would be no leaders. Or ships, possibly. Imagine a world without ships. Then we would never have the movie Titanic. What a great world. Leadership can be defined thusly:

In a world where most people would fall to their deaths by blindly walking off of cliffs--which would be a pretty long walk from Kansas--a leader is a person who will step in front of those people and say "hold on a minute here you guys" and then lead them with great insight to the fastest place to walk off that cliff.

In other words, a leader is a person who leads. Why do I bring this up you so presumptuously ask? Because on this blog, I am the leader. Every time I write I lead my readers right of of cliffs and to a watery death. At least we're in Malibu

Another person who is a born leader is my wife. She always has been the type of person who can walk into a situation and take control. Also, she is unfailingly true to herself. Helps to make her a great teacher, a great teacher mentor, a great department head, and a pretty good capture the flag player.

Now she may have a chance to be a principal. There is a fellowship in our neck of the cliffs that offers, for the qualified candidate, to both pay for their principal classes (How to Make Kids Wait on a Bench, Announcements 101, Budgeting on a Budget, The Philosophy of Pantsuits, Theoretical Angry Eyebrow Knitting, etc.) and pay her salary while she's learning. And she always said after she got her Masters, " The only way I would ever got back to school now is maybe if someone paid me. Maybe"

And so here we are. I don't know exactly how many applicants there were-- a safe guess would be a million-- but my wife is one of a handful of finalists. Which meant she had to go to a seven hour interview last week. I can only assume three and half hours of it were filled with getting the ratios of pens to pencils correct in a desk pencil cup, and the rest was practicing the most threatening/condescending way to say "Mr. Murray. Why don't you come in and have a seat."

I always got on really well with my principal if you measure it by time spent in his office.

I don't know if she'll get it, but I'm crazy proud of her already because I know she represented with passion, honesty, and students foremost in her mind.

But if she does get it, I can't wait to get called to her office. Rawr.

HM

Conversations of Hope and Vodka

I open the freezer to take out the vodka. It pours thick, clear, oily.  Doesn't even burn a little going down.

Here's what I told my daughter when her Connecticut Grampa called today to cancel a visit to celebrate her recently passed 6th birthday. She asked where he was a little before bedtime, so I told her.

"Well, in Boston, there was an explosion during the marathon. You know what the marathon is?" She nods her head. Her teacher's mother ran it. She's unharmed.

"Someone planted a bomb and it exploded and caused a huge mess in the middle of the city so that part of the city is closed. They closed it so that they could investigate and find out who planted the bomb and also so they could clean up the mess. So that makes traveling near or through the city really difficult. But he said he'd come up on Friday, ok?"

"What's a bomb?" she asks. Heh.

I feel like I always knew what a bomb was. Growing up during the Cold War will do that, I guess. She managed to make it six years without that knowledge. Beautiful, naive, little punk.

"Well, " I said. I say well when I'm buying time. "Well, a bomb is something that someone makes and puts somewhere so that it'll explode. It causes explosions."

She raises her eyebrows. "Shit," they seem to say. An impressive new nugget for her to squirrel away in her perfect head. Soon, before she goes back to school, we'll probably have to give her a little more information. Maybe we won't. I don't yet know.

I don't blame the old man for canceling. The phone conversation was disjointed. He was disjointed. Uncommon for him these days. He sited traffic and his wife's fear of going through the tunnel as reasons. They were plenty good enough. He could've sited restless leg syndrome and his horoscope. Not used to hearing him feel guilty. Not used to hearing him scared. Funny, that.

So she knows there was a bomb. And she knows what a bomb is. I don't really know what the boy knows. We haven't told him anything, but in the hours following the explosions he told us he kept, "thinking about scary things." Maybe it was connected, maybe not. He's the child that needs the night time incantations, the monster checks in the closet. Then again, my wife and I were pretty fucking tense. While we limited their exposure to the news we still had our handheld devices and our wagging tongues. Who knows?

That's the over arching way I'm feeling. Who knows? Who knows what this means? Who knows who did it? Who knows how I'm supposed to keep my kids safe in a world of random violence?  Who knows how many of the first responders and helpful civilians actually feel like heroes? Maybe they just feel like the clean-up crew. The surgeons at our multitude of excellent hospitals probably feel ok about themselves today, but you know, surgeons.

I know only this: I've got kids. And I've got to be able to let them make their own judgements and have their own dreams about this world. Which means, I've got to have hope. Silly, stupid, irrational hope.  I hope that if it's a domestic terrorist, it wakes us all up to how much work we have to do in this country. If it's a Muslim terrorist, I hope it wakes us all up to how much work we have to do with Muslim people. I hope the fucked up individual who did this is not a brown Muslim person, for all our sakes. I hope that someday soon I'll overhear a loud voice at a local bar crow, "Yeah boy! That's what you fahkin' get for fahkin' with my fahkin' city, muthah fahkuh!"

Mostly, I hope because despair takes almost as large toll on my liquor cabinet as hope does. And also, fuck it. It's going to be in the low 60's tomorrow and my kids and I are going to the park.


HM

My hope and wishes for recovery go out to everyone involved. People of Boston I love you.

Guest Post: Family Cat

From my Wife:

For those of you who don’t know, this has been a very difficult year for our family.

My daughter has entered all day kindergarten, and her school is woefully under-prepared for her level of ability – like most public schools in this country, the focus is on remediation, rather than education – and navigating those waters (even for a teacher) has been very difficult. Medically we are in a holding pattern, as all of her oddities (the kidney reflux, the extra teeth, the small stature…) seem to be leading nowhere despite endless specialist visits and hefty copays – at least we have insurance. And of course, it isn’t easy being 5.

My son has had some potty training issues. He is rebelling hard against his father. He gets “growing pains” and is sick with random colds and stomach ailments way too often. He worries too much for a 4 year old, and is too tuned-in to the feelings of adults. He struggles with his bossy sister, clumsiness and his speech impediment. He cries a lot, still sucks his thumb until he has blisters and calluses, he still wears pull ups to bed… And of course, it isn’t easy being 4.

My husband had some “winter blues” for the first time in his life, which is in part why you haven’t heard from him much. He spends too much time being the heavy with our kids. He is responsible for all the cleaning, cooking, shopping and laundry in our house – oh and all the shoveling (significant since we live in New England). He handles the bills and our dwindling finances – basically, he decides who gets paid this month and who doesn’t. This year things got tight (way too tight) and too much of our stuff broke – plumbing, car, roof, kids, wife… And of course it isn’t easy being 39.

As for myself, well all I can say is “it’s hard out here for a pimp”… And of course being 40 sucks.

That brings me around to the point of my guest post. Today we killed our cat -- the family cat. For those of you following our family, this is the 3^rd cat we’ve had to euthanize in 3 years. The 1st was mine, the 2nd my husbands, but this one was everyone's while also being distinctly her own.  We got all 3 within months of each other in our early 20’s, so it isn’t surprising that they’ve gone down like this – but still it’s like Kevorkian dominoes around here. What can I say about Cordelia? She wasn’t my favorite – that was Xiu Xiu, the first we “put down.” She wasn’t the longest, that was Ty by about 2 months. So why is Cordy so hard to let go? I think it is a combination of things – she was an amazing battle-axe of a cat with a long and complicated life.

17 years ago, my now husband/then roomate decided to get a cat. I already had the two Siamese, but he wanted to “save” a shelter animal. We lived in JP at the time, and walked to our local MSPCA to check out the kitties. I petted and cooed over a beautiful grey tabby, a cute little tiger kitten, a reverse calico. But no, no, no… Then, he said, “I found her!”

There she was, a scrawny bedraggled nasty beast with missing patches of fur and six huge pink boobies. I said, “Really? But how about…” “Nope, she’s it.” I asked about her kittens – she was living on the streets, no one found them. I asked about her fur and her breath, gingivitis and malnutrition. I asked about her age – about 8 months… 8 MONTHS? So, I was about to adopt a homeless teen mother with bad hygiene. Great.

Then we got her home. She was insane – a crazy, violent creature who would purr while attacking you – claws like a wildcat and so much power. She tried to hamstring our other roommate when he teased her with a string toy and rip off my brother’s arm when he played the “hand under the blanket” game. In play, she would wrap herself around your body part, sink in her teeth and rabbit foot your flesh with her back paws as hard as she could – and yes, purr. Charming, right?

This lasted about a year. Then she mellowed. She became a love machine, and you could hear her purrs from several feet away. She gentled and tried hard to fit in. Our snobby Siamese wouldn’t play with her, so she made friends with our stinky old shih tzu -- Maggie. The old dog tolerated her, but really Cord was an island. She would chase after the others trying to play, but attempts to replicate their acrobatic feats more often than not landed her in a puddle on the floor after slamming into a wall or sliding off a banister. She was not the picture of grace or dignity.

She was highly social and would come out to partake in our early 20’s drinking games or “circles,” she would cuddle up to anyone and was highly vocal for a regular cat (Siamese influence, I suspect). Her hygiene improved and her coat filled back in She became a healthy, glossy looker – even a little on the chunky side. People often commented on her beauty, which my husband swears he saw under that dull, dandruff ridden, spotty coat and boney frame.

When we left the city and moved to the suburbs, Cordy rediscovered the great outdoors. She refused to be an inside cat to the point that she tried to eat through a door. She was the terror of all mice, voles and small rodents in our neighborhood, and it was not uncommon to find a little headless corpse on the doorstep. Oddly, she never hunted birds…

When Cordy was about 8, she met her first soul mate. Maggie had developed doggy dementia, and her replacement is a huge dumb boxer puppy – Ruby. The two became fast friends, and Cordy began to revisit her kittenhood.  She’d dash around the house, Ruby at her heels, fly through the air and land on Ruby’s back, and snuggle up at naptime and all night. They developed a deep and amazing friendship, unlike any I’ve ever seen between a dog and cat – especially two dummies like these. Cordy followed HM and the dog on walks, they shared a water bowl and a bed, and they loved each other deeply.

When Cordy was about 12, she met her second soul mate. My son was born and Cordy took to him right way. As he grew into a rough and tumble boy, the other animals shied away, even the boxer would get overwhelmed by his energy and action. But not Cordy. She’d sit quietly while he dug his baby fists into her fur. She’d cuddle beside him as he watched TV, knowing he’d likely roll on top of her. She’d purr and head butt him as he mischievously plucked at her tail or carried her in a strange half-nelson hybrid. Of course we corrected him, but she never did. Not once. Nor did she ever leave his side. Even in the last frail moments of her life, when my son shouted goodbye to her as she was loaded into the car for that last ride, she called back to him -- a weak peep compared to her old cries, but still...

About a week ago she got sick. Then she got skinny. She started to resemble the cat she was in the shelter so long ago. We’ve done this twice; we knew the signs, so we buckled in and waited for her to tell us it was time. But Cordy was different. Unlike the others, she stayed very public in her last days. She needed to be with her people and her dog. Yesterday, she started with the stomach trouble and weak legs. But still, she didn’t “go off.” Instead, she settled down next to her dog to die. Whenever Ruby went out or got up, Cordy would cry and desperately try to find her friend, and Ruby would hurry back to comfort her lifelong companion. Those desperate cries were our signal that it was time, and every one of them broke my heart a little. So today we made the call.

She was with me through my first year of teaching, the break-up of my previous engagement, the death of my first dog, the birth of both my children, 3 moves, the buying of our house, the death of her 2 Siamese sisters, and the adoption of 2 new kittens and a puppy. She took it all in stride. She was the last symbol of my youth. She was a dragon – a powerhouse of strength, bravery and unconditional love. She was a fighter, a survivor and a forgiver. She was Cordy, and now she’s gone. I will always miss her.

Spiderman Vs. Batman

I was waiting in the alley to pick up my son from pre-school when I saw the man with the Batman cap. Silly, a soft bellied middle aged gentleman sporting the logo of a children's comic hero with a dark side.

"Nice hat." I said.

"Thanks." He smiled.

"Check it," I said as I unzipped my jacket to reveal the old school Amazing Spiderman t shirt stretched tight across my middle.

"Heh," he replied. "Spider man. Nice. I'm a Batman guy all the way though."

"I can see that," I said reasonably, "Batman's very cool. Dark side and all that. I've just been a Spidey fan since I was a kid."

"Oh yeah? Huh. What I like about Batman is that he has awesome gadgets and he kicks pretty much everyone's ass."

"Yeah." I said. "What I like about Spiderman is that even though he's super strong, he often ends up fighting against long odds."

"Who do you think wins in a fight?" He asks.  We're too old for this discussion, I know that. It's pretty goofy at our age. Besides, the answer is obvious. But it's a pleasant enough way to pass the time, so I indulge. While Spiderman is possessed of super human qualities, Batman is a scrapper and does have a lot of fire power. I answer along those lines, with the caveat that you rarely find Batman fighting someone so much stronger and faster than he is, so I give the edge to Spiderman. It's a polite and generous answer.

"No way," he answers. "Batman totally kicks his ass in a fight."

I say, "Well, you've got to make a case for that. I mean, Spiderman is stronger, faster, and at least as intelligent. Why does Batman win?"

"Because," he shrugs, "Batman is tougher, a better fighter, and he's got tons of weapons. He would beat Spiderman senseless."

My Spidey sense starts tingling. This guy's a fucking moron.

"That's not a reason," I tell him. "Batman only fights people with regular human attributes, maybe slightly heightened through training or being psychotic. Spiderman has super human powers he uses to fight super human bad guys. Now while I allow that Batman's skills would provide him a chance to get away, in a mano-a-mano fight, Spiderman kills him."

He waves me off. I'm annoyed. Then he says, "Look, no offense, but compared to Batman, Spiderman's a pussy."

"Really? Based on what? Your obvious ignorance of the character?" I reply. Smug, I turn my back and start walking away.

"Whatever. You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want which is that Spiderman's a pussy."

At that I turn and face him across the distance. "Yeah?" I cleverly respond. "Takes one to know one."

What did you just call me?," he rasps in disbelief.

"I didn't call you anything. I merely implied it." I tell him this, my face carved out of condescension.

"I don't want to do anything I might regret here, but you don't apologize, and I'm going to come over there and show you who is a pussy." His face is red, frustrated, his voice abraded with anger. I don't help.

"Come over hear and do what, puss-puss?" I say with my lips pursed, all sarcastic innocence and sweetness, like I'm talking to a kitty. He charges. Slowly. Immediately I squeeze my ring and middle fingers to the bottom of each palm, other fingers extended, and yell, "Thwip Thwip Thwip!" It doesn't stop him.

In an instant, I've dropped to the ground in a Spiderman crouch. Up on my toes with my feet under my center, knees straight out to the sides one hand lightly splayed on the ground in front of me. The popping sound my groin makes sounds like one of those little, plastic, champagne bottle shaped noisemakers where you pull the drawstring and it goes off.

He hits me huffing and puffing, his stomach smashes into and around my face, suffocating me. I grab on hard and we go down. Rolling and snorting out of the alley and on to the sidewalk in front of the school. A mess of limbs and love handles and ear hair. Two angry manatees, going for each other's fleshy throats. People start yelling. I have a moment to think, "this got out of hand fast," before I feel him start to land blows on my shoulders and arms. Then I make my move.

I manage to lever myself up on top of him for a moment. "Nahnah Nahnah NahNah Nahnah FATMAN!" I screech in triumph.  I swing at him, I miss, grunting with the effort, and fall over. He's on me and we roll around some more, gasping and wheezing like two asthmatic pigs. "I'll squoosh you like a fucking stupid spider," he heaves noisily into my ear. It's wet.

"You're *gasp* Stupid!" I quip.

It looked just like this. Actual photo.

By the grace of Stan Lee, someone starts grabbing at us. Slapping and barking at us to cut it out. We both seize the opportunity to stop flailing. I look up. The children have come out. O. No.

We re-assemble ourselves with caution. One joint at a time. Make it to our feet. Grab the hands of our respective children. We don't look at each other.

My son asks, "why were you on the ground wrestling that man, daddy?"

"No big deal buddy. We were just, uh,  playing."

As I shuffle off bow-legged like an old cowboy, much of me feels shame. Shame for fighting someone at my age, shame because my son saw some of it, shame over the reason we fought.  What would Aunt May say?  I am filled with Shame and the pain in my groin. I glance across the street and I see my nemesis favoring his right leg badly as well as grasping at his lower back. He's wincing. I'm still filled with shame. Along now with maybe just a skosh of the knowledge that you don't fuck with Spiderman.  And that I need to see a doctor as soon as possible.



HM

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Featherbrained weirdness. Seriously, it's Odd.

The writing of the following just sort of happened. It was very much written "in the moment." It's a departure. To sum up, it's pretty weird. But I figured, what the hell.

Birds

The bird flew in great gulps

and swinging notes of air and 

beat. 

Notice the head down, wind blown, slit eyed

determination of a hollow boned idiot

Spurred on by a genetic deformity. A biological need to fly 1000 miles just to procreate
or hunt or get warm. No giant brains, constantly adapting. Just wings and things. Food on a blue blue sky. Stupid birds. 

Feather brained bug eaters given souls by hopeless romantics. Predators who soar on thermals high above their pray and swoop down at break-neck speed in order to snag a chipmunk. There is no bravery here. They fly like that because they have to. They have to risk their lives just to have a chance at dining on rodent.

Stalk legged shrimp suckers painted the pink of nightmares smelling of shrimp flavored shit.

Giant, angry, birds with necks like leg warmers, malice in their hearts, the ability to kill a man with a single kick, and wings whose use ceased long ago.

Sharp beaked, blue-black, nightmare denizens who feed on the entrails of every neighborhood everywhere. Birds

Caged budgies and parakeets. Squawking and chirping for pellets and shitting on papers below. Clipped wings, every hint of poetry robbed by hopeless romantics who want to hold things they love close enough to render them toys. Playthings for fleshy earthbound giants desperate for connection. Stupid birds.

Give me turtles with shells that act as home, hearth, and shield. Give me dogs bred for faithfulness, cats who slink and purr, fish imbued with all the colors inside a wormhole. Give me Sea Monkeys who die before their novelty wears off, plants that listen to classical music, white rats with red eyes that know where things are. Just don't give me birds.

Flightless waterfowl, scratching barnyard familiars, sad warbling lake dwellers. Fuck'em.

Flight is a miracle and birds are the creatures who receive it.

I like chicken parm.

Birds.


HM

Mixed Blessings

First of all, Christmas Miracle:

Santa, you naughty little minx.

Second, this is a picture of my city's last remaining Jews--from a time when there were many and other than myself-- celebrating Chanukah. It's from the back page of the Everett Leader-Herald and News Gazette. They couldn't decide on a name. Please, for your own good, read and pay close attantion to the blurb under the photo:

Yep, that's what it says alright.

Now that's what I call a Jewian slip. I mean a Freudian Jew! I mean Jewian Je . . . *sigh*. Look, can we just chock all of this up to it being a Jew-o. I mean a type-Jew! I mean a kapo!

That's my home town newspaper. In a blurb about the city's last remaining Jews, they send'em back to Jewusalem. All the Jews that's fit to print.

Jeesh.

HM

Santa Vs. Death

Nagging, niggling, jiggling guilt. Not a ton. Not quite a paralyzing amount, just the amount that chews out curling up space in the back of your brain or waits quietly, pressing between your shoulder blades. That's my Santa guilt. I never thought I'd have it. Santa is fun and we believe that fantasy is good for children and lord knows everyone lies to their kids at some point, even if they don't think they're doing it.

I have guilt because the following is the Peanut's belief system, and the responsibility for it rests on my wife and me.

"Marina and I were at school today." Marina is her best friend at school. They talk a lot." Marina and I were at school today and we were talking about what happens when you die--

"You were talking about when you die?"

"Yeah and we think that when you die that's it you're just dead and there is just nothing."

"What? You guys were talking about death and you think when you die there's nothing?"

"Yup that's what I think. I think you die and then *shrug*, that's it."

"Oh."

Whoa.

This is pretty much verbatim the conversation I had with the Peanut as we took advantage of a particularly sun spalshed afternoon to make a stop at the playground on the way home from school. Certain and unfazed by the absolute end, the Peanut hangs lightly by her legs from the monkey bars.

At first I allowed myself to wonder whose ideas these were. Is my little fairy princess the existential boogeyman of kindergarten room 8 or was it her friend Marina?

That question was answered for me a few days later when she told me that in school that day during recess she had been spreading her secular gospel of the damned throughout her class. She had told Alexis and Velma  about the end of existence. The lack of eternity. And, "we all agreed." And lo the Peanut spoke from the monkey bars on high, and proclaimed that death is final, and saw that it was good. And the people followed.

Meanwhile, the existence of Santa has been confirmed.

"Sometimes Marina and I talk about the Grinch and we wonder if he's real."

I shrug. "Oh yeah?"

She grins. "Yeah. Nobody knows. But Santa is real though."

So there you have it. The afterlife is a dream, but Santa is definitely coming and, in the Peanut's head, he's probably part fairy.

And I feel guilty about this in part at least because I'm an atheist. Let me qualify that a little. I'm not anti-god or even anti-religious. How can I be? I'm an atheist. I can't be anti something I don't believe in. I mean I could, but what's the point? Religion isn't evil and it isn't divine, it's human.

And that belief, along with our willingness to talk about god in an objective way, to sing prayers during Rosh Hashanah and Chanukah, to answer "We don't know, nobody really does," when the kids ask what happens when you die, to believe in Santa and fairies right along with them, says to me that we leave room for faith, we don't deny them it. Nor would we. If they do end up atheists (Deniers of Gawd!), I'd rather it was something they came to themselves rather than for the reason most people have a given religion . . . because their parents do.

Yet there it is. Faith Denied. So it really feels like lying when I play up Santa. Really really. Who am I to derail my tiny philosopher from her search for truth with my silly, mythical bullshit?

I'm her dad, that's who. And I guess if I've thus far failed her in terms of allowing her the room to experience religious faith, the least I can do is give her the space and encouragement to believe in a magical fat guy with genius Elven slaves and a sleigh that travels at near light speed solely through the power of reindeer farts.  And also fairies are real. And the Glass Ceiling isn't.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

HM

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