"You Been Messing With The Bees?"

We're getting bees. They come tomorrow. All 500 of them. I don't have enough place settings. But they're coming. Eleven is not psyched. He is afraid of bees. We've done all the "honey bees almost never sting, as long as you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone." Same thing we tell kids about bullies and bears. It'll be like immersion therapy. Applied without expertise, and living in his backyard.

Thirteen's eyes are already glowing the color of all the money we're going to make by selling all our honey. We told her it'd be a year until we see honey, and it won't be that much, and we don't want to sell it, but she's not listening. She's adding and multiplying. Thirteen is a very capitalist age. Late stage. She's gonna make money of off our hard work and investment.  We might have to unionize.  Thirteen is a very capitalist age.

I'm nervous, but also I wonder if I'll be able to make one of those bee beards on my face. Or maybe just a nice bee mustache.  Or bee mutton chops. Or a little bee flavor saver right below my bottom lip.

They could all just fly off. It happens. I'd be ok with that. Bees gotta bee. I worry about mites, sickness, skunks, the dogs, the weather. I don't worry about the Murder Hornets so much because I saw a video where some Japanese honey bees take one apart, so I figure American honey bees will be more than up for the challenge. They probably carry little AR-15s.

The Bees come tomorrow. What a crazy thing.

Musings from the Big Pink: Dead at 25

Musings from the Big Pink: Dead at 25: From the moment you're born, you start dying. That's what people say. From the moment you're born, you start dying. Blech. Depre...

Friday Night Man

Two doors down, people were having a party in their yard. It sounded like it was going pretty well. Maybe too well.

As I stood in my kitchen, I heard something loud hit my house. CLUNK. I had to investigate. As a father. As a man.

I stopped individually wrapping the miniature strawberry cupcakes we had baked earlier and grabbed the nearest weapon--a plastic auger type anchor for a beach umbrella-- banged open the screen door. and stepped outside. Clad in boxer briefs and nothing else, my flaccid penis pushing weakly against the revealing cotton blend, my body the shape of a small circus bear (furry, retired, and well-fed), I advanced on the night. The night recoiled.

I got 3 steps and realized that the sound had been the accompanying clank that comes when our automatic sprinkler turns off. So I saw nothing. I found nothing. And that thought, the rhythm of the phrase, “found nothing,” made me think of that song from A Chorus Line when Morales sings about her acting teacher who she hated and upon hearing of his death sang she “felt nothing.”

3 verses later, I’m inside, My family, safe.  I completed wrapping the little pink cakes and retired to my living room for a beer, the company of my wife, and a viewing of the Maze Runner on HBO.

Op-Ed

I saw a feature on Good Morning America a couple weeks ago about a mom who parents only through praise. She has completely stopped criticizing her children and I thought to myself, "What a wonderful liar."

That's parent blogging/marketing in a nutshell though. It's a horrible place, generally. Everyone is nice to each other all the time. Except when they're not and then usually it's just a big, flabby, ivory tower slap fight.

We often write about our triumphs and when we write about our failures, there's often something missing. We smooth out the pain. You rarely get that bloody fingernails holding on by a claw feeling. We revel in the beauty and wonder of our children. Then we revel in the beauty and the wonder of all the beautiful and wonderful parents out there blogging beautifully and wonderfully about their beautiful and wonderful children. Collegiality and support are great. I will go on record as saying I support being supportive. The all the time part though . . . Sometimes that'll cause a body to miss a thing or two.

There's this very popular parenting website and on one occasion one of these guys wrote a post about how their toddler didn't recognize a person's race and how it was so "beautiful" because their three year old was "colorblind. Colorblind to race." And when I read that I thought, "That is sooo racist. So white, liberal, racist. Jesus CheeRIST that is bad. Haven't they seen Stephen Colbert do his bit on whites using the term colorblind to describe themselves?"

A white person using the term colorblind is a denial of a human's unique beauty, culture, and personal experience. If a white person is referring to themselves as colorblind and it's not because they can't tell the difference between red and green, they're definitely racist. I thought this was a well-established truth.*

So, I commented on the post. I said, "Wow. Your kid sounds really racist."

There was some hullabaloo and how dare you(s) and don't come backs and is nots and so forth. I replied, "Hey. It's no big deal. He's still young. You can help him with that shit. Just, you know, tell him to stop being a racist. Try telling him that he needs to see and appreciate people for who they are."

Hullaballoo and anger and go away and so forth.

The problem with that story is that it never actually happened. They posted that post, but I never said anything at the time. Remember what I said about everyone being nice to each other all the time? It sucks. And I suck for playing along. Who has one and a half thumbs and a long history of mistakes? This guy.

I really did call a blogger's kid racist once but that kid was like five and he said something to his mom to the effect of "I don't like people with brown skin." That shit is racist. I had to say something in that case. The blogger was upset. Lots of people said things in her defense about how it was natural as kids come in contact with new people to on occasion react at first with some negative feelings. Which is true. It's also racist.

----------------------------------

Calling your white self or your white kid colorblind is kind of a passive racism, but it's still racist. See, you've got your passive racism--self aggrandizing white liberals, people who don't speak up when they should (present company included), any time a person is complicit in the crime of institutionalized racism, etc.--and aggressive racism--burning crosses, violence, use of the n-word, for example. Occasionally you get your passive aggressive racism ("That color doesn't work for me but on you it's great") too.

I don't get the big deal white people have with being called out as racist. We react so horribly. And it is a horrible thing to be. But it's not purely a moral issue, which is I think where people get caught up.

You're white. You've never been black. You had white parents. You were raised in a white neighborhood. You can't understand the experience. Especially if you're male. So when you find yourself being racist, instead of saying "Oh my god. Me? No. No no No never! I'm a good white person!" You should maybe try going, "Ok. What did I do there that was racist? Can I fix it? How do I do that?" And then you figure it out and you move on and do better on the next blog post.

I mean no harm. Everyone makes a mistake now and again. I'm sure the above mentioned bloggers walk relatively unracistly through most of their lives. They're talented and generous guys and everyone seems to like them. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

In this country at this time, remaining quiet is not an option. So while I'm sorry to the blogger(s) I'm calling out in this space, I'm even more sorry that I didn't do it sooner.


HM


*If a person of color tells me that they have no problem with the term colorblind being used to describe a given white person's lack of racism, then in that case I am wrong about the term's racist connotations. That's the way that works.

Dead at 25

From the moment you're born, you start dying. That's what people say. From the moment you're born, you start dying. Blech. Depressing. And untrue. When you're born, you are alive. Your synapses and cells are growing at astronomical rates. Every molecule of you is burning and crackling with energy and potential and life. You glow with fresh skin cells, lustrous hair. Your fast twitch muscles react as fast as the electrical impulses  that command them. Things smell good and taste strong. You do crazy shit not to feel more alive, but because you feel so alive. Then you turn 25 and that--give or take--is when you start dying. That's when your metabolism begins to slow down. 25 years old. The end of the road. Bilabial fricative.

Some people, they say "no." They say that you don't start living until later. Kids, grandkids, travel, pictures of birds. "I'm living!" they declare. "

They're not of course.They're dying. They're just doing a really good job at it. And that is awesome. Enjoy your death. Make it last. If not now, when?

Here's what wisdom is: Your brain rewires itself and while losing the abilities of great retention and quick recall you're brain develops the ability to say, "Whoa. I'm dying here. I'd better be careful." If you have kids the statement is amended to, "You better be careful. And you better careful around me."

As late as 1900, the average age of mortality was 45 years old. Not so long ago. Now it's like 160 or something. I didn't bother to look it up, but it's pretty high, relatively speaking.

That's why we have the mid-life crisis. Becaue it's not a mid-life crisis. It's a "why aren't I dead?" conundrum.  The answer to "Why am I here?" is "Because medical science keeps you alive in defiance of the natural world."

I will say that having kids is great because they make you feel alive and awake again except for the days when they make you wish you were dead.

So maybe that's a good reason for being nice to each other, is my point. Maybe if every time we meet someone or greet someone we stop to remember, "Jesus. This guy is fucking dying," we'll be more inclined to treat that person with the compassion a dying person deserves.

Then again, they won't be here all that much longer  anyway.

Happy Mother's Day to My Wife in the Terms she Deserves

I just got back from a late night trip to the drugstore. Not for an ointment or the like but for a Mother's Day card for my wife. It was the last chance I had to get one. The last place I looked. I came away empty.

I am very good at picking cards. For any occasion, for anyone I know reasonably well, I find a way to pick a card that people really like, and it usually doesn't take me all that long. It's an odd, useful in a very specific way kind of talent. But not tonight. I don't blame myself. I blame the cards. They sucked.

The cards were all filled with empty mom things. Things one might say to any mom. In fact, there was actually a category of card called, "Any Mother."  How about that for horrible? Just any old mom. "They're all the same, for Christ's sake. Just take your pot of flowers we bought on a street corner four blocks from your house and enjoy."

Here's the thing. My wife is not that faceless "Any Mom." My wife is not, "the kind soft presence that smoothes my rough edges." She's not the "gentle, sweet woman who is always there," or who, "we know we don't always appreciate enough." She's not some one, "we don't always remember to tell I love you," or someone "we forget is there until it's time to eat." 

(I might of made that last quote up.)

She's not even necessarily the "heart of our home." Not alone. 

She's the soul and the brains. 

My wife is a woman who works her ass off to keep us fed and warm and secure and even vacationing.

My wife is hard when I'm soft (which is not to imply she's not quite soft in some delightful ways), smart when I'm stupid, and organized when I'm chaotic. 

My wife fights for her children and our home.

My wife balances me when I'm frustrated, relieves me when I've had enough, and gives me a boogeyman to scare the kids with. 

My wife can make the kids understand when I can't.

My wife respects who I am, what I do, and what I provide for her and our children. She allows us to show our kids there are many ways to live, and many definitions to the words, "father"and "mother."

My wife makes excellent chicken soup. 

My wife is a role model who displays virtues like passion, hard work, compassion, strength, and an ability to approach the world on her own terms.

My wife loves her children deeply, fiercely. Mama Bear.

My wife is my partner in parenting. We fight and love and soothe and punish together. 

My wife is the only person I would ever pick to show my daughter what it means to be a woman, and my son what women really are. Humans. Adults. Parents. Just like Dads.

Happy Mother's Day, my love. Our kids are lucky as hell. And so am I.

HM

The Circle of Life

I have to wake up the pman every night around 10-10:30 so that he can go pee. I take him downstairs and into the dining room and he still somehow manages to hit the back of the toilet, the floor, everywhere except the bowl. The astonishing power of the little boy pee stream. It comes out like a laser and hits the porcelain with a high pitched whine like a skill saw.

When I was a boy, I was always embarrassed by that sound. I always wanted the deep bass tones created by the heavy pee streams of my father or the grown ups in the public bathroom. Gravitas, that sound said to me. Little did I know it was because they were dying. Now I'm the one who's dying and my son is the one who could pee a hole through a vault door. And that's the circle of life.