15 Years is a Long, Long Time

When my sister Erin died, fifteen years ago today, her biggest fear was that the people in her life weren’t going to remember her. This was a ridiculous thing for her to worry about, of course. However, this is the year I can kind of understand where she was coming from. It wasn’t so much the idea that we’d all forget she had ever been here and a part of our lives, but after so much time passed and the world would move on and carry us (but not her) along with it, she wouldn’t be the same presence for us she’d once been. 

Truthfully I think that can be said about most of the people in our lives, though. Just in the years since she had passed, I’ve had relationships that, at the time, had seemed close enough that I felt for sure those people would always be with me, regardless of what paths our lives took. Things absolutely did not go that way, though; even though a number of these friendships had been some of the strongest of my life time, they’ve faded into little more than social media echoes. Relationships are living things that both ends have to work at to keep alive, and it can be a cold realization to bear witness to how easily things can disappear. Sometimes it can come from physical distance, or mental distance, or emotional distance. Distance itself isn’t enough to wrap things up; my closest friend lives two time zones away and has for at least a decade now. Not every relationship is strong enough to survive, as powerful as it might seem while it’s happening. Life happens the way it does, and sometimes it sucks. 

I never worried about Erin fading out of my life. I have millions upon millions of formative memories of her, along with the memories held onto my my parents, my sister, some of our longtime friends, and so many others in my family. Unfortunately, but realistically, one of the things that keeps me tied to her now is this quietly pervasive pain that will never go away. I’ve said before that in grief, you aren’t sad all the time but the sadness is never far away. It’s an undercurrent to everything you do and think. It comes with a crushing weight, but it also twists into a version of nostalgia when you have happier moments and feel more capable of facing it. You can tell yourself you’ve found peace with the loss, and I believe it’s possible to reach a point when you truly have, but finding peace isn’t the same thing as being released from the pain. I know a lot of people seeking to be comforting, with the best of intentions, would try to fall back on the Thoughts and Prayers chestnut of “She’ll always be with you,” but I promise you that 99.985% of the time it does not feel that way. She is decidedly not with us anymore. Her time with us came to an end, and the rest of the world continued to turn.

I can honestly say that fifteen years out usually means it all doesn’t hurt anywhere as much as it has before. But times like the days or weeks leading up to important days, like this anniversary, can come back and smack you in the head like a boomerang you forget you had tossed. Fifteen years feels like a landmark anniversary number, and that got me thinking about how different the world is for those of us still alive since the time we lost her. Just to give you a perspective on how much distance there is now between our losing her and an understanding of how hard the pain can hit if it can still breach that distance on occasion, here’s a list of things I thought of while I spent a good amount of time lying awake in bed early this morning — fifteen of them — that Erin never lived to experience:

*She never knew anything about my brother-in-law David.
*Between my sister, my parents, and me, we’ve had a total of seven dogs in the family that Erin never met.
*There is not a single book I’ve written that she had the chance to read.
*The house where I’ve lived for well over a decade now, and the house where our parents are spending their retirement? She never saw either of them. 
*The iPhone didn’t exist until three years after she died.
*Facebook had still been the domain of a few thousand college kids.
*She didn’t know anything about the car accident that came so close to taking our sister.
*The first Iron Man movie was still four years away, so she never saw any of the “Marvel Movies.” (Thor: Ragnarok and Captain Marvel would have been her favorites, and she would have giggled at never scene with Ned in the most recent Spider-Man movies.)
*She left the world when people still dominantly bought compact discs for their music.
*She probably never even heard the name “Barack Obama.”
*She never saw an episode of “The Office.”
*She never had the chance to read a single of the 500+ posts I’ve written on this blog.
*She missed the entire academic career, from kindergarten through starting the freshman year of college, of my youngest nephew.
*She never heard Green Day’s “American Idiot” album. To be fair, she might not have been all that interested in it anyway, but since it was released only weeks before she died and I listened to it almost constantly during that time to help purge the anger and frustration I was feeling, it would be impossible for me to disassociate that album from that specific moment of my life.
*She wasn’t at either my 40th or 50th birthday parties.

The relationships Erin had with those who love her did not end, despite the ultimate distance being between all of us now. We’re living in a different version of the world from the one we experienced with her, though. That can be a lot to think about.

An Open Letter to Nephew #3

Dear Nephew #3:

I’ve written one of these for each of your brothers. As I looked back at what I shared with them, I found a lot of general going-to-college advice that would apply to you as well, so I’m recycling the ideas that seem the most useful. However, we all know that as similar as you are to your brothers, there are also things that make you very much an individual. Your experience will not be theirs. So here is my abundant wisdom, tailor-made for you, from which I am certain you’ll benefit if you take it to heart. You’re very welcome.

*The first 48 hours I spent on campus were some of the most intimidating of my entire life. Things will likely feel very foreign at first. I promise it won’t last. If I was given the chance to revisit any period in my life, I’d go back to any random month I spent in college. The learning, the newfound independence, the constant discovery, the emerging self-definition, the failures and successes, the hundreds of casual friendships, the evolving relationships — both long-term and temporary; it’s an exhilarating time. I’m a tiny bit jealous that you’re about to be immersed in all of that. 

*The blank slate is a beautiful thing. You'll settle in, meet new people, and spend the first few weeks being whoever you want to be. No history, no baggage, no labels; everything completely neutral and waiting for definition. You'll live in glorious, intoxicating anonymity for awhile, and even after you establish your new circles of friends and acquaintances, that's how things will be most of the time. Enjoy it.

* Many people go to college because it seems like the next step they’re supposed to take in life. The truth is college isn’t for everyone, and by no means does it guarantee happiness and success. Happiness comes from getting to do what you want with your life, and hopefully with enough security to avoid any severe and constant worries. Having a degree will result in more choices and opportunities being available to you. It wouldn’t be the worst idea to occasionally reflect on why you’re in school and what you hope to get out of it. Having said all that, I have no doubt that you belong there. You will love the experience of it and will greatly benefit from everything it has to offer.

*Some of the best memories I have from college were the results of the chances I took, while all of my biggest regrets were from the ones I didn’t. Try to imagine how different high school would have been if you weren’t involved in your list of arts and activities. I’m not saying join every club or try out for every activity you hear about, but be open to possibilities. Don’t let hesitation ever choose your path.

*When you throw yourself into doing your best and things don't work out, let that be okay. You'll make mistakes, or things will take a wrong turn of their own accord, or even a combination of the two might happen. Just pick up the pieces and move on. Don’t make it bigger than it needs to be, and learn what you can from the experience. In the end, remember your GPA will only wind up being one line on your resumé. It's important, but it shouldn’t define you. Today’s trials are tomorrow’s footnotes. 

*The time might come when you’re tempted to blow off some of the classes that seem easier. Don’t give in. The grades you get in that first year carry a lot of weight when it comes to establishing a baseline GPA. Trust me, you don’t want to find yourself hundredths of a point away from graduating one level of honor higher than you will, especially if it means knowing it would have made all the difference if you’d just gotten a B instead of a C in that one freshman class where you spent half your time playing with the light reflecting from your watch onto the ceiling instead of paying attention. That kind of thing can stick with you.

*Set goals to work toward. Plan for ways to work around any patterns that become obstacles, and take advantage of the ones that work. Find a routine to get your class work done, and seriously, get your class work done. It won’t be just completing assignments; your goal isn’t the grade anymore, but the knowledge. You have a SWEET work study gig; use that as an opportunity to learn how to prioritize and manage your time.

*Give everyone you meet a chance to show you the best version of themselves.

*College is a great time to get the stupid out of your system before you have to officially join the real world as a full-fledged adult, but you will still be held accountable for your decisions and actions. You’ll hear people frequently using excuses like “Dude, I was so wasted,” or “Oh crap, I totally forgot” as reasons for not getting things done or making complete asses of themselves. But: Teachers won’t care. Employers won’t care. Police won’t care. (Not that I expect you to have any run-ins with the police, but still.) People will see your actions as a result of the decisions you make, and they will take that as a representation of who you are. 

*NEVER walk into a dorm bathroom with bare feet. Never, ever. There’s more awful going on in there than even the CDC could categorize.

*You’re 18 so you could probably nutritionally absorb cardboard without experiencing so much as a stomachache, but there’s going to be an extraordinary amount of pizza in your future. Walking all over a huge campus will help you maintain a respectable step count, and having a bike on campus won’t hurt either. College is a good time to begin establishing good habits. Maintaining even minimal exercise routines will make a big difference in how you feel, both physically and mentally.

*When you feel insecure about things, remember that everyone around you will be insecure as well. Everyone is just trying to get by. Everyone is looking to define themselves and figure things out, even the people who either seem like or act like they’ve already figured it all out. They really haven’t.

*The teacher in me has to get this out: In high school it was the job of your teachers to teach you. In college it will be your job to learn. If you don’t find a way to do the learning, you can’t blame anyone else for it, and it’s not always going to be a ride around the lake. Professors won’t care about which clubs people were or were not in, who took advanced placement or had IEPs, who had a letter jacket and who didn’t. To some of them you’ll be nothing more than a face in the crowd, a name on an assignment, or most likely a number on a list. Some will recognize and appreciate what you have to offer, but be ready for that to be the exception. It’s just the way the machine works, especially in the early years.

*You’re going to be surrounded by a lot of people who have awful taste in music, and yet they’ll feel as passionate about their music as you do about yours. Resist the urge to point out how misguided they are. You’ll only come off like a fifth grade boy dramatically covering his ears and complaining about how much BTS sucks. 

*It’s always good to try and get along with your roommate as much as you can. Not all pairings turn out great, but most are at least workable. Agreeing on some ground rules can help. My roommate in the dorms was different from me in a lot of ways, but we lived together well because understood each other. 

*If you have a professor tell you there are multiple forms of a test and you’re using a bubble sheet to mark your answers, pay very close attention to which form you have and where you should hand in your answer sheet. That way you can avoid studying really hard the night before and scoring an 11 out of 50 because you put your answer sheet in the wrong *&%@! pile, and then you won’t have to miss attending Game 7 of the 1987 World Series because you can’t afford to have another failing grade on one of the only three tests given during the term.

*Respect the people, and especially the women, around you. Luckily you and your brothers all have strong relationships with your mother, so that’s going to give you a head start. Demonstrate that respect in ways that will help you earn it from others. At the same time, remember that you can’t control how other people think and feel and act, and that no one has the right or the power to marginalize you.

*The people you'll know and the friends you'll make will come from three groups: The ones you live with, the ones you learn with, and everyone else. How big Everyone Else is completely depends on how involved you decide to be in campus life beyond your dorm room. I cannot emphasize this next part enough: These coming years will be the very last time in your whole life when you will be almost exclusively surrounded by people your age. Take advantage of that. One of my clearest college memories was a day I was cutting through the student union and I saw a girl I knew from a class sitting with a cup of coffee and studying. I stopped to say hi and we talked for a few minutes. The reason I still remember this is because it was a such a perfectly representative moment of what so many days of campus life were like. Soak up and enjoy all the minuscule details that make up college, whatever that ends up meaning for you. I’m not saying to forcibly embed yourself into every aspect of the campus community, but dip your toes into something new once in awhile.

*Text your mom sometimes, just because she’ll miss you.

*Take advantage of this time to discover who you are and to prepare for the life you want to have. Learn to recognize the importance of small events as well as the big ones. Pause and occasionally allow yourself half a thought to appreciate what’s happening to you in the moment, because, believe it or not, these next few years will absolutely fly by.

*Remember there are all kinds of us who want to see you succeed and are cheering you on. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you ever feel it’s becoming too much. We’ve always had your back, and we always will.

Middle Grade?

When I began writing short stories for real in high school, there was no purpose or intent behind it. I just had ideas come and thought they were cool, and writing them into stories felt right. That habit carried into college, and even into the earliest years of my teaching career. Being surrounded by kids for most of the year presented me with constant inspiration for stories to tell about the innocence, trials, and comedies of childhood. Eventually I had enough stories to assemble as a sort of anthology, and made a half-hearted attempt at trying to get them published. Of course that went nowhere since I only knew a fraction of what I needed to about how to do it right.

The next logical step was to write a book. This was terrifying. I hadn’t written any piece of fiction much longer than fifty pages, so just the idea of trying to write an actual book-length manuscript was daunting. And the phrase “trying to write” is used very intentionally here, because I had no idea whether or not this would be something I could even do. It felt like someone with three years of noodling around on a piano deciding one day to sit down and write a symphony. However, over the course of one summer break, mostly between the hours of midnight and three a.m. (back when I was physically able to be awake that late) I managed to write my first book. I felt great pride in the accomplishment, and even greater relief in knowing I could. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible, and it had a few moments I’d probably still be proud of now if I could bring myself to read it. Most importantly, I was able to walk away from the experience knowing I had successfully crossed a new threshold.

That year of summer book writing was followed by a few more. I started feeling more confident and started thinking again that maybe what I was writing was worth trying to publish and it was time to try finding an agent. Through a combination of hard work, patience, and plain dumb luck, I finally broke through and connected with an agent, someone I get along with who understands my writing, always sees how it can be better, and encourages me to do more with it. Right now, while we're on submission with one project and in the middle of preparing another, she’s gently encouraging me to explore a brand new direction. 

I never consciously decided to write middle grade fiction. The stories I thought up were largely inspired by the shenanigans and lives of the kids at school, so those ideas came naturally. Branding is definitely a thing for authors, so if someone is known for writing in a specific genre or age level, typically that’s the wheelhouse where they stay. I don’t remember a lot of details about the first time I spoke with my agent on the phone, but I remember her asking something about middle grade fiction, and if that was the direction I wanted to go for a career. “Because you can write anything you want,” she said, a statement that jumped out at me in a conversation that was jumping out at me as a whole. Did she mean “You’re so talented you would be able to write any kind of book you want”? She’d only read one manuscript that still needed a lot of work, so that didn’t seem likely. Or was it “You don’t have to stay in middle grade if you don’t want to, and I’d be able to represent you in whatever direction you wanted to go”? I hoped her meaning came from a little of each.

She and I have done a lot of work in the past few years, and we’ve had a lot of conversations about writing and publishing in general. Early this year we brainstormed up what hopefully could be a good idea for a middle grade series, for which I’ve drafted two manuscripts in just the past several months. Just as that idea is gaining traction, she’s got me thinking hard about trying something outside of middle grade. That's right: In just the past few weeks, for the first time ever, I'm seriously thinking about trying to write something in mainstream adult fiction.

The problem is I haven’t written anything with an adult perspective in decades, and I have honest questions about whether or not I can do it, at least to any degree of quality. Maybe I’ve settled into children’s literature for so long that I’m solidly entrenched in that lane now. Maybe I’ll try something adult that won’t ring true. For me to even think about trying this feels very much like the apprehension I had some twenty odd years ago, making the leap from writing short stories to trying to write an entire novel. 

Maybe that’s a good sign, though. Scaring myself by wandering into unknown territory could be an opportunity for growth. Having viable projects for middle grade and working on something for adult fiction could be like throwing more than one message in a bottle into the ocean at once, and waiting to see which might be discovered first. 

All of this speculation and overthinking is probably beside the point anyway, since there’s so little I can control about what happens at this stage in whatever kind of writing career I might have. I guess in the end it all has to come back to the writing. That’s really the only part I can control, and it’s the part of the process that’s always been the most fun. 

The First Year Home

I had a seven year gap between dogs. Part of that came from the leftover pain following Spencer’s prolonged death, while part of it was being accustomed to a life that was so much easier. No trips to the vet had to be made. No accidents or vomit ever needed cleaning up. I could go to school early and state late if I needed to, without feeling any guilt. I didn’t have to worry about who was going to watch the dog whenever I left town. It was an easier life, but an emptier one. 

Last summer was a long one after Freddie came home. It’s hard for me to explain exactly how frightened and withdrawn he was when he first moved in; only the people who saw him in his first days could fully appreciate that. His trust came slow but he got used to me, and he got used to his surroundings, and after several weeks he settled in comfortably. He’s now as happy as he’s ever been. He has plenty of favorite napping spots, and often will go to bed on his own before I do. He’ll attack his toys first thing in the morning, burning off excitement about knowing he's about to go for a walk. He knows our neighborhood well, including many of his dog neighbors and their human companions. He has all of our walk routes memorized, knowing where his favorite sniffing spots are, where he’s supposed to turn, and where house is his, regardless of which direction we approach it from. He’ll happily dance when he knows it’s time for breakfast or supper, and recognizes the sound of me opening the door of the cabinet where his treats are kept. When we settle in for the evening, he’ll always watch to see where I’m going to sit, then races over and jumps up to lie down beside me. If I don’t give him enough pets and scratches, he isn’t shy about swatting at my hand to remind me what my job is. 

I’m not sure anyone else will ever see the happy and bouncy little guy I know him to be. Whatever bad things happened to him earlier in life have left him extremely cautious and shy, and I don’t know if that’s something he’ll ever get over. He does open up, though. It has to be on his timetable, and it takes a long time to happen, but after awhile they get a glimpse at the loving little dog he is. 

After our first year together, I have a better understanding of why dogs such as him are called rescues. It isn’t necessarily because they’re taken from a pound or a shelter and get to move into better home, but also because they get another chance at a better, happier life. When I see him run to his safe places when visitors come or curl up to hide himself if he thinks he’s done something wrong, it almost makes me wish I knew exactly what had happened to him before he entered foster care, so I could understand those behaviors better. Since that won’t happen though, I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. Instead I’ll do the only thing I can, and redouble my efforts to make his home and his life as happy and comfortable and loving as possible. 

Day 31: Nightmares, Dreams, Phone Notifications, and Schrodinger’s Cat

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile now.

If you aren’t familiar with Schrodinger’s Cat, it’s a thought experiment that says (and I’m putting this very, very simplistically because I sure don’t understand the whole thing) that two possibilities can equally exist as truth until one of them has been proven wrong. Imagine there’s this opaque, soundproof box with a cat inside. Additionally there’s material in the box that would kill the cat after a certain amount of time has expired. If that time mark has been reached, the cat can’t be proven alive or dead, even though all evidence should support it being dead. Because it can’t be proven alive or dead, that means it’s alive and dead at the same time.

I find the little I know about thought experiments to be pretty interesting. I’ve learned it’s probably best to leave understanding them to the quantum physicists who think them up.

Anyway.

I like to apply the same idea behind Schrodinger’s Cat — or at least my likely misinterpreted understanding of it — to dealing with the same unresolved events each of us encounters several times each day. Say, for example, you’re anxiously awaiting a phone message or a text from someone with very important news. You’re going about your day, and DING. Whatever your notification sound is goes off, alerting you to a new message. You look at your phone and see who it’s from. Oooh! The person you’ve been waiting to hear from!

You know that hybrid feeling of dread and anticipation you’re immediately hit with when you see that message has arrived? I say that comes from knowing you’re about to either face the dream or the nightmare. That might be kind of dramatic, but in some cases probably not. Something huge you’re waiting to have happen and have been hoping against hope for so long has finally arrived at your metaphorical doorstep. Will you experience jubilation or disappointment? Have you ever gotten such a message and hesitated for even a moment before discovering what it says? There’s that Schrodinger’s Cat moment. You want to prolong the possibility that the dream might come true because you know it’s possible that it won’t once you discover the truth. You want to keep the cat alive for a little longer.

This works the other way, too. Let’s say you were waiting to hear news that wasn’t so good, maybe something like a test results from a doctor, or some kind of financial or legal issue that could upset your life, or an update on the condition of someone you care about who is faced with some serious problem. You can hope things will work out for the best, but in cases like these there’s very little you can do other than wait. What happens when that email notification pops up? Would you open it right away to find out what happened? Or would you be feeling such an undercurrent of expectant dread that you’d want to spend a few more seconds living in a world where the bad news you’re anticipating isn’t real? You don’t want to open the box because you don’t want to discover that the cat has died.

Everyone has possibilities like this they have to face. They aren’t all life-altering events, but I’d say everyone has probably had their share of those, or will eventually. I wonder how many people would consider themselves to be optimistic and brave enough to see the notification and jump right in to find out the truth immediately. Sometimes I am, but usually I put it off as long as I can, letting both possibilities exist until I can’t stand it anymore, then I just tear off the Band-Aid before I can sink any further into anxiousness.

I’m not sure why I’ve been thinking about this so much in the past few days. The calendar would make it seem like it would have something to do with the approaching end of the school year, but I’m not finding the connection…one more thing to think about, I guess.

Anyway. May is over in a few hours. Everyone have a nice June, and try to squeeze as many happy moments from it as you can.

Day 23: 10 Years Later

My first blog post was on May 23, 2009.

A few things that have changed since then:
*I had a dog. Then I had a long and fairly painful period without a dog. Now I have another.
*I went from my early 40s to my early 50s.
*I started writing the blog as a way to keep my writer brain in shape during the stretches of time when I wasn't working on any kind of a project. The idea of ever publishing anything was little more than a pipe dream. Now I have an agent and a manuscript on submission. I'm almost always either actively writing something or planning what to write next. I suspect this shift is probably the biggest reason why my regular posting has declined so much in recent years.
*The number of people who read any typical post started in the single digits, then gradually climbed into the dozens and hundreds, then gradually declined to far more modest numbers again. Undoubtedly a result of my sporadic posting. I'm still thinking hard about what, if anything, I really want to do about this. Any final decisions on this could well involve conversations and advice with that agent. I know there's at least one more post that demands to be written later this summer, but after that....?

Much of what has been written here over the decade has, in one way or another, reflected who I was or what was important to me at the time, whether it was translated through something intentionally stupid or goofy I wrote, or something that reflected a crisis I had been trying to reconcile. In that way it's been very much like a journal I started keeping in my senior year of high school and continued to write in, over five volumes, well into my teaching career. The big difference, of course, is knowing that whatever I wrote here always had a potential audience. A private journal is much more vulnerable and honest, which is why it's probably for the best that it no longer exists.

It was important to me to have daily posts this month, since doing so would push the blog to the landmark number of 30,000 visits and ten years of writing. I don't know if I'm going to add any more new content this month, though. This time around hasn't had the same internal motivation challenging me to come up with something new. I'm hoping this is a good thing and means I might actually be reaching a point as a writer where I don't feel like I have to prove myself to anyone, which would be a nice evolutionary measure. I acknowledge it could just mean I'm lazy. Or just tired. Because it's May and I'm a teacher and literally only other teachers are ever going to be able to understand what a potent combination that is for pure, uncut exhaustion.

My big goal this month was to try and find a way to name every post after a song title, which I've pulled off up until now, but I don't think I will anymore. I will keep posting this month (at least providing Facebook links), but instead of publishing new content I'm going to take a small celebratory lap for reaching this ten year mark. In the place of new posts I'm going to dig into the blog archives for some of my favorites that either had big reactions when they first came out or didn't get the attention I'd hoped for at the time. There are a few in there I really like, and I think people who spend time reading here might enjoy seeing them if they didn't the first time around.

Maybe I'll still add some new content this month, if I'm inspired. But if not, look for those older posts in the next few days if you're reading this now. And thanks for sticking with me for this long.

Day 22: Writer in the Dark

I remember reading an interview with Stephen King a long time ago. He was telling a story of how he had once been walking through the grocery store, looked up, and wondered what it would be like if a pterodactyl were flying around in there. From that random moment, his story "The Mist" came to life.

I read "The Mist" and thought it was cool. I also had a text-based computer game version of it, which I had been excited about but ultimately proved too frustrating to play for very long. I thought the movie version of "The Mist" was great, even if it had arguably the most disturbing ending of any Stephen King movie ever made.

It always fascinated me to think of how a story that took on such a life of its own had started with just a simple "I wonder" moment for the author. A lot of the things I've written have started off in similar ways, with just a strong image or half a premise that I can't shake. For example: Back in the 17-18 school year, I had regular recess duty for the first time in many, many years. Most of the time I didn't mind it. Sometimes it was even a nice break in the day. The important thing was it got me back in the playground. Out at the south end of our school playground is an enormous tree, both majestic and gnarled with age. The roots of it come up out of the dirt like strong knuckles holding onto the ground for dear life.

Maybe it was because it had been so many years since I'd been on the playground to have the time to get a good look at it, but something about the sight stuck with me. About a year and a half after locking on to that image, I found a story for it and wrote a creepy middle grade horror manuscript based in a tree, in three weeks.

A couple days ago I noticed this:

Right beside the parking lot I use every day, wedged between branches in a tree I usually park by, just below a small hole that has a family of birds living behind it, there was this baseball just sitting there.
My first thought was how some kid had been playing with it, probably left it there and then forgot about it. Not a stretch since it's been my considerable experience that most kids are true experts at forgetting about things. But that same ball was in the same place the following morning, and the morning after that, after a long night of pounding rains and punishing wind.

I sat there in my car staring at it through the windshield, and I started thinking: It must be wedged in there pretty tightly to have survived the storms. It had been a couple of days since it appeared and hadn't moved, so it was clearly lost property now. Why would someone have jammed it in there in the first place? That part of the school grounds isn't even close to anywhere kids would be playing anything that would involve a baseball. Was someone missing it? Was it hidden as part of a prank? And if it was, did the baseball have some kind of personal significance to the person who lost it? If it did, what? And, more importantly, why? There had to be some real backstory to how that ball had ended up in the tree. There were also infinite other speculative reasons about how it happened. My brain started collecting them. Not formally writing down notes or anything, but just latching onto some interesting ideas and stashing them in the mental vault.

I guess the point I'm dancing around here, if I can make it without sounding to self-important and arty (because I still feel a little uncomfortable with trying to call myself an artist) is that I think moments like this and the reactions I have to them a part of what makes me a writer. There have been very few instances, if any, when I've intentionally thought "I'm going to write a story about this topic" and go from there. Usually it has more to do with noticing the weird little incongruous things that surround us every day, and considering them from a slightly different perspective.

Maybe someday one of those partial ideas related to that baseball will find an existence. There are a couple already swimming around in the soup of what my Big Secret Project is right now, so it isn't impossible. Not that even this means those ideas will ever come to any fruition, but they sure are interesting to play with and wonder about.

Day 21: Guest Writer -- What A Good Boy

I am Freddie. I am a good boy. I live at home. I live with my person. Today is person’s birthday. He doesn’t want to write. I will write. I will help person. He gave me home.

I love home. I have had different homes. Many homes were bad. They scared me. They hurt me. I was very sick. I was sad. I thought I would be scared forever.

I found home last summer. I was scared. All was different. I didn’t know person. He pet me. He held me. He opened a door. Door scared me. I pulled away. I pulled off my collar. I ran away.

I ran everywhere. I ran over neighborhood. People tried helping. I was scared. I would run. I saw last person, Annemarie. She had my treats. She gave me some. She was nice. She took me home. New home. I was scared.

I didn’t eat. I didn’t drink. I was too scared. Person gave me small foods. Person put water on fingers. I would lick, then got thirsty again. Person let me sit. I had my blanket. I had my friend Pillow. Person had treats.

I learned home. It was safe. I felt better. I had safe bed. I could sleep. We did walks. I love walks. We did lots. I made friends. Wags and Molly and Stella and Diego. I felt better at home. I felt better with person. He gave pets and scratches. I had toys. Bear and Fox and Chicken and Bird and Hamburger and Raccoon. And my best friend Pillow. I love Pillow. Sometimes Pillow is in bed.

I met other persons. Persons were nice, but I was scared. I knew sometimes persons are bad. I don’t like bad persons. They scare and hurt. My person won’t. His persons don’t either. Sometimes they give me toys. And treats. I love treats. I love bones. And apples too.

Now we wake early. We walk. I eat breakfast and bone. I drink water. I play with toys. I lie in morning sun. Then I go in bed. I sleep and dream. With Pillow and Bear and Fox. Sometimes Bird. Sometimes Hamburger.

Person leaves, then comes home. Always comes home. I’m so happy. I run and dance. We walk. So many sniffs outside. I eat supper and drink water. I rest in blankets and pillows. They are soft. I like soft things. I like being soft so I get pets and scratches.

It gets dark. Time to sleep. I run to bed. Jump to my corner. Curl up in sweatshirts. Sometimes I bring Pillow. Or Bear. Or Fox. Not bone. Person doesn’t like to step on bone in dark. I like person. I don’t bring bone.

I sleep. Sometimes snore. Warm and safe. Dream of my tomorrows.

I like home. Home is mine.

All dogs should have home. Clicking on person’s Facebook birthday Fundraiser for Good Karma  Animal Rescue will help other good dogs find homes they will like, and will make me a very happy good boy.

Day 20: Life Won't Wait

I’m not someone who should do a lot of reflecting, because it usually leads me to questioning a lot of my decisions, and, more importantly, my hesitations. It makes me think about where I always thought I’d be at this stage of my life and why I’m not there, at which point I begin looking for ways to blame myself for that.

Today is my last day being 50. Like too many years, there was little that distinguished it as anything different than most. If this hadn’t been the year I adopted Freddie, it would have seemed a lot like almost any other year from the past decade. I never physically felt the age any more than any other age, but it was the year that people started treating me like I was older. Not everyone, and not by a lot, but enough to be noticed.

It makes me think about the coming school year, with longtime friends moving on to new buildings and a lot of new people joining our staff. Are they going to immediately categorize me as the old guy, which I certainly am at our school? Will it be easy for them to see me on the way out instead of building my way into the career, or as someone established in my peak years?

Eventually though, my thinking shifts. Instead of wondering about what mistakes I wish I could edit out, I start to speculate about what other stories are waiting to happen. Ups and downs for certain, but hopefully enough of a mix that will keep things interesting and keep me more anxious to find out what comes next than looking back and putting too much concern in what’s already happened.

After all, life continues moving on no matter what. It will have lows, and it will have highs. All we can hope for is enough highs to overwhelm the lows.

Hmm…that sounds familiar, somehow….

Day 19: Book of Hours

One of my favorite things about summer break is having time to read. I still need to find a book to kick off my reading binge, but there's another one I really want to finish off first. The problem is I've been reading this book for at least a year and a half now.

It's not that it's long. In fact, it comes in at just around 450 pages. There have been a few paperback novels I've read in a day when I've had the time. If I take a trip somewhere, I usually go out of my way to find a book to bring, and I usually have the time to finish it before returning home.

This book is just really, really dull.

I won't say what it is or who wrote it; as I writer who hopes to someday be in a position when I have to be concerned about other people being hypercritical of my work, I just don't think that would be a cool move. I will say the author is very successful, and the book is in the vein of something like The DaVinci Code. The main character is something of a historian who backs into a longstanding governmental conspiracy and is soon way over his head. Most of the chapters are only a few pages long, which seems to be structured to propel the reader forward. My problem is that I'm so unengaged with all that's going on I can't seem to read more than ten or twenty pages in a sitting.

This book has gone for months at a time, sitting on a table untouched and waiting to be revived. I have the hardest time abandoning books completely, and can only think of maybe ten times I've ever done it. It becomes a quest after awhile, even if I don't enjoy the book. That's what this one has become.

If I get to a place where I just don't want to read it anymore, I've started trying to figure out why that is. What is it, specifically, about that book that I find so numbing or bothersome, or even repellant? There have to be good lessons there in that kind of analysis. Here are a few things I've figured out about this one:

1. The main character isn't interesting. He doesn't really have any agency in the story. He's more like a pinball, bouncing his way through the story and only reacting to things as they happen to him. There were early attempts at a backstory, but they just didn't catch my interest. Plus I read that part more than a year ago, so I don't remember much about them. Which is also a statement.

2. He's "in love" with an old middle school crush who came back into his life through the events of the story. The author isn't giving me enough about her to make me share the crush the way I think I'm supposed to.

3. The short chapter thing doesn't always work. Yeah, sometimes there are mini-cliffhangers I want to see resolved, but there are too many times he's not giving a scene enough time to breathe.

4. He keeps telling me about why this conspiracy is such a big deal, and yet I don't really feel it. He hasn't shown why, other than having a lot of characters with a variety of loyalties chase around the greater Washington, D.C. area after each other.

I think I have about 100 pages left. In a perfect world, I'll be ready to start a new book on June 9th. It'll probably be some John Sandford crime story, which is how I've started many a summer in the past. He's not perfect, but at least he's entertaining. And I always finish his books.

Day 18: Through the Hands of Time

Last night was Nephew #3’s final choir performance, which brought his high school performance career to an end. There’s a lot of construction going on at his school this year so the auditorium wasn’t available. Instead, the concert was in the great hall of a nearby university.

It was an interesting pairing. Being the last concert of the year, it was the last concert period for all of the seniors, and there were many moments and songs meant to acknowledge the emotional send-off with only days of high school left before they all move on to whatever comes next for them. Many of them, according to the senior slide show, have college plans in their futures. I’m sure it wasn’t lost on many of them that they were performing at a college, and surrounded by a very different environment than a high school auditorium would have been. As difficult as an evening as it was for so many of them, which was evident from all of the tears that were shed, it’s a beautiful stage of life they’re at, each about to move on to a new horizon that is all their own.

Earlier in the week, my teaching partner was meeting with a finance guy during our lunch. He’d set up in the lounge during the day to be available to set up retirement programs for anyone interested. She’d been meaning to get to it this year, so it was a great time to check important box on the to-do list. It was the catalyst for a few discussions about retirement this week, especially since we had another colleague celebrating with a retirement party Friday after school.

It got me thinking for the first time, at least in a tangible manner, that my retirement is now about ten years away, give or take a year or two. Putting the money aside, that’s a pretty big thing to consider — to face that this thing I’ve been doing now for nearly 30 years will be coming to an end, and probably sooner than I’ll expect.

Has my life or my career gone the way I thought it would, either back in my nascent days of college or when I was setting up my own retirement program, which happened so long ago I can barely remember not having one?

This time of the school year is usually reflective for me, even more so this year with my nephew finishing high school and so many of my friends moving on to different schools and experiences next year. I think about all the things that went well, specific happy memories I’ll keep, but also the frustrations and failures I encountered. (Whether it’s fair or not, I probably focus more on the those.)

All I can do at this point is hope I made a difference. With any luck, the students I worked with will remember me well instead of spending their adulthood cursing out what a bastard I was. More importantly, and what would honestly be the most important to me, would be that they’ll remember things I helped them learn. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t even remember where that knowledge came from, because it will become a second nature part of who they are.

We had a talk with our classes on Friday about the importance of ending the year with positivity. Isn’t it so much better to end on high notes instead of go through the last days with people bothering each other and having to live with the consequences of negative decisions on their ways to middle school? I hope they see it that way. I’d want them to have that ending.

After that ending happens, my mind will shift over to slowly getting ready for the next class to start in the fall.

At least for a few more years.

Day 17: Looking for Answers

You probably know why you're here. Let's jump right in.

1. Why did Xfinity skip channel #25 in their line up? 

I don’t know what to tell you. They didn’t for me. It’s ESPN.

2. What are schools doing better than they did 30 years ago? 

Addressing the non-academic needs of the students, and providing more comprehensive mental health services and family crisis networking. This makes me think of something Vision said in Avengers: Age of Ultron, about the presence of more superheroes in the world being a causality for more problems only superheroes could address. I think because we have more specifically targeted levels of special education, more psychologists, and more social workers in the schools, the availability of all this support has revealed greater need than was previously recognized.

3. What makes my sister Jenny so much better than myself? 

She’s much more able to live a normal life since she doesn’t have to deal with the social shortcomings that accompany my particular degree of genius.

4. Why are dogs so much better than cats? 

Dogs appreciate. Cats expect.

5. Is democracy dead?

Not by a long shot. But certainly not from a lack of effort from the woefully under-qualified assortment of chuckleheads and pathological liars currently taking up space in the executive branch.

6. What is your perspective on school shootings and how they’ve affected all school children? 

There’s no “all” statement here, because so many have experienced it differently. We do lockdown drills at school, but when we do there are too many kids who see it as an opportunity to mess around with their friends while the lights are off and they think they’ll go unnoticed. I wish they’d take it more seriously. I remember talking about this with a colleague at a happy hour years ago, and we were both concerned about one particular person tangentially related to our school who absolutely had the potential to become an active shooter. Teachers are more affected since we know how serious of an issue it is. For too many of our Fortnite playing minions, it’s not real. Sadly that isn’t the case everywhere. But I'm also kind of glad they haven't had all of the innocence chased out of them yet.

7. Who is your favorite Marvel character, and why? 

A tough one, but my first instinct is to say Peter Parker’s best friend Ned, because he’s hilarious and the kind of guy I would have wanted to be friends with in high school.

8. You’ve been sentenced to death. Pick your last meal and what last album you listen to. 

First of all, this is more of a statement, which I hope isn’t true, and a command than a question. All the same….Last meal would probably be a huge Thanksgiving dinner with only the foods and sides and desserts I like. Last album would be Dream Theater’s Scenes from a Memory, if only to remind me that the spirit carries on.

10. Has children’s play changed over the last fifty years? How? Why? Who?

A few years ago I overheard a conversation between two boys and a girl in my third grade class, about how they planned to get together and play after school. It warmed my heart, right up to the moment they explained they would be meeting up over a server instead of in real life.

11. What’s the best show on TV right now? 

This is tough. I can’t say Game of Thrones because it’s been fan-fictioned within an inch of acceptability over the last two seasons. I can’t say Veep because that’s officially off the air. I can’t go with anything on Netflix, because my definition of “on TV” doesn’t include streaming. I’m tempted to say “The Office” because it’s technically still on TV, if you count several hours of reruns on Comedy Central most days. I guess the show that fascinates me the most, even though it comes and goes irregularly for short seasons, would be “The Circus” on Showtime.

12. If you had to choose between giving away your entire book or music collection and never being exposed to them again, which would you choose and why? 

I didn’t even have to think about this. I’d get rid of the books. Once you read them they’re either a part of you or didn’t connect with you enough for you to remember. I’d never give up my music.

13. How much does the final season of Game of Thrones suck? 

I don’t think I’d go as far as “suck.” I think of it as lazily written and rushed. I think everything they’ve done in this season still could've worked if the story they are telling had been stretched out and developed over the course of two or three full seasons instead of six episodes.

14. What places would you like to go on vacation that you’ve never been to? 

I really don’t know how to answer this. I don’t have any kind of a checklist. For me, traveling is more about the people you see once you get where you’re going, or, if there aren’t any people waiting for you at your destination, the people you travel with. Generally it would be nice to visit or explore new places, for the experience. Having said that, I’m still waiting for someone to get the Schulz trip to Iceland organized.

15. This could take awhile: What is your favorite memory of each of your cousins, and why.

I’m not answering this today. I want to honor the question, but it will take a separate post. That will have to come later in the month.

16. What is the biggest challenge you face as an educator? 

Again, a tough one because I can think of at least fifteen biggests. Somewhat fresh in my head after this year's crop of frustrations, I’ll say trying to work cooperatively with parents when they are so wrapped up in their own ideas about what the school should be doing for their child that they expect every interaction with school staff to be adversarial. We all ultimately have the same goal when it comes to the education and well-being of their children, but when people come at us looking for the fight they expect us to give them, for whatever reasons they have or whatever issues they’re working through, it makes those goals much more difficult to achieve.

17. Why are you still teaching? From your posts about days till school is out to hoping for snow days to dreading school starting in the fall, I just wonder why you keep doing it. You certainly have the skills to do many other things. It seems like you aren’t happy in your current job. 

First of all, on the subject of being happy in any job, I’d invite people to read what I wrote about happiness earlier this month and apply that to any typical workplace. Secondly, dreading school starting in the fall is either a misinterpretation of a massive exaggeration of anything I’ve ever said; I’ve never dreaded going back to school. If anything, I’m usually ready to go back if not anticipating it two or three weeks early. Sure, there are a lot of aspects of the job I don’t enjoy, but that can’t be extended to the job itself. I had a friend ask me once: When I leave the house in the morning, do I think of myself going to work or going to school? 995 times out of 1000 it’s going to school. "Work" is a job. A job is something you do to stay busy in the afternoon and pay the bills. It’s wrong to call teaching a job. A career, maybe, but a calling or a mission is more accurate. As frustrating and exhausting and terrifying as it can be on any given day, it has purpose. It has community. I’m still teaching because it’s the most important thing anyone can do in our society, and I’ve known that since I was twelve. Plus, there’s this quote that I found in a college textbook in 1989 that I have on my Facebook profile still today:

"I am that most fortunate of men for I am eternal. Others live merely in the world of today, while I live in the world of tomorrow... for I am charged with that most sacred mission: to transmit all that our forebearers lived for, loved for, and died for to the next generation... I make wisdom live... I do not simply teach the mind, I reach the heart, and when I reach the heart, I touch the soul." -- Zev Schostak

Dated sexist language aside, that holds true. I teach because I can’t not.

And as far as celebrating snow days? Give me a break. Anyone with a job where they spend most of the time trying to keep their head above water who would get a sanctioned day off from work because travel is too dangerous would absolutely relish the unexpected opportunity to catch their breath and mentally recenter themselves. Damn right I love snow days, and I’ll never apologize for that.

18. If you could only eat six things for six months, what would you eat?

I’m taking advantage of a perceived loophole, in that the question asked for six “things” instead of six “foods.”
*sandwiches, because there are so many different kinds and so many ingredients
*apples, so I could share with Freddie
*cereal, for the same reason as sandwiches
*school pickles, because come on
*Nacho Cheese Doritos
*lemon bars (*not really*)

19. Which popular idiom do you find most annoying? 

“It is what it is.”

20. If you could meet one person, alive or dead, who would it be and what would you say to him or her? 

I’m tempted to go with the old "Pearls Before Swine" joke and answer “The alive one.” But I’d probably go with the real Freddie Mercury, and I’d tell him to track down Brian, Roger, and John and put on show so I can see the four of them play live.

21. What are your top 3 pet peeves? 

Smokers, bands that call themselves bands without actually playing instruments, the inevitable parade of people that ask to use the bathroom in the middle of every friggin’ test I have to give.

22. Why don’t you like The Eagles music? 

Honestly, I just think most of it is boring. That whole 70s era singer/songwriter thing never clicked with me. I like a song or two, and some of their solo work, but not enough to ever consider even a greatest hits package.

23. What order should I show my daughter the Marvel movies (the primary characters' storyline) and the Star Wars movies? The order they were made or the order they happened?

From a storytelling perspective, absolutely the order in which they were made. The Star Wars prequels were made the way they were to fill in the blanks leading up to the original trilogy, and without prior knowledge of the trilogy there are events that wouldn't be as resonant. Would it be as big of a deal at the end of Episode III if you didn't already know the twins being born were going to grown up to be Luke and Leia?

As for Marvel, they had huge success with Iron Man and then came up with an MCU plan to link everyone together. I look at "Captain America: The First Avenger" as being more prologue than prequel. We only have to know how he got to where he was in the 21st century, and the movie ends right before the Avengers were formed. The movies were put together in a way to, again, fill in the blanks, such as using "Captain Marvel" to explain why Nick Fury had an eye patch this whole time.

So my take? Definitely the order in which they were released.

24. If Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were outlawed, what would be your 3 main arguments against the unjust legislation? 

I fail to see any injustice in that premise.

Day 16: Happy

Last night while watching the three-hour time waste of the season finale of Survivor, I created all of the lesson templates I need for the rest of the school year. Not the lessons themselves, but that’s okay. At this point the things I still have to teach are so limited and repetitive that creating the template with my iPad app is half the work. After I had the list completed, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the whole set of them fit on one screen without any scrolling. The last day will be upon us sooner than anyone will expect.

One tradition I have at the end of the year, or on any school work day which doesn’t involve students, is to put together a playlist in iTunes I can download to one of my iPods and listen to throughout the day. It’s never simple though, and especially not for the end of the school year. There always needs to be some kind of a theme.

Usually it’s a collection of the kind of bittersweet album endings that are meant to close off whatever narrative the artist tried to communicate through that particular collection of songs — these are the songs that would appear over the closing credits of hit movies back in the 1980s, back when hit movies included songs that were worth being played on the radio throughout the summer. Happy songs, but also kind of sad because they signal something significant coming to an end, and perhaps an end that isn’t happily anticipated. This year? Maybe a little of that.

I’ve also had playlists that are purely celebratory, the kind of musical victory laps that demand to be taken when a particularly trying school year finally ends. The Alice Cooper “School’s Out” or Huey Lewis and the News “Couple Days Off” playlists. Music to kick off the summer because there’s either something great to look forward to or something that is wonderful to leave behind. Those aren’t just happy songs. Those are the concert-opening, fist-pumping, turn-up-the-volume-in-anticipation-before-the-first-note songs. This year? Maybe a little of that, too.

Some years I’m just happy to be done with the year and ready to move on and have a few dozen days off to fall off the face of the Earth and relax. That requires something quieter and calm, not so much a celebration, but a winding down. You know those early Sunday morning radio shows some stations used to play, back when the world paid attention to radio? The Sunday Sunrise or whatever, with all the mellow songs that normally didn’t get played much but came together in a perfect way to set a mood? That’s what those playlists were like.

This year I think I’m going to try something different from all of my usual plans. I saw something online a few weeks ago about a guy who did some kind of experiment on himself, where he was trying to fight off his encroaching depression by playing nothing but happy songs whenever he listened to music. Now, for the record, I’m not saying that I’m wading through overwhelming anxiety or depression or anything as the school year comes to an end. However, reading that made me wonder exactly how much difference it could make to play nothing but songs that are undeniably happy.

What kind of a send off could that be? Goodbye to the kids, two blessed work days instead of one, and then see y’all in late August? All of it with a happy soundtrack?

It usually takes me at least a week to put together my playlists. I might give this a shot, just to see what happens.

Day 15: Numbers

Fourteen more student contact days.
Sixteen mornings and afternoons Freddie has to spend asleep in his crate.
Three field trips.
One Track and Field Day.
Two days to pack, clean, and grade.
Several four-letter words liberally tossed around by the teachers (in the staff lounge) and the bolder 5th grade students (everywhere else).
Two tests to give.
Sixty-two report cards to complete.
About 38 math students who couldn’t care less about anything.
6 students who sat at their desks and read for fun before the morning bell today.
Maybe, maybe, five or six kids I will miss to any degree.
Seventeen people who still either have boots or snow pants in their lockers.
Three or four more homework assignments I want to send home purely out of spite, but probably won't.
At least 20 books bearing a sticker with my name that I hope will be returned to me before the last day of school.
Hundreds of math materials or manipulatives to either recycle, shred, or toss while making room for a new curriculum.
Eleven school lunches.
Five cabinets, 6 bookshelves, and one closet to organize and pack.
Four days of recess duty.
Two more times to take the long walk down the hallway to the art room.

When all of it’s over with — 79 days off.

Day 14: The Ghosts of Christmas Eve

It took me some time to figure this out, but I think I finally have: I’m over Christmas.

The music, the movies, the commercials. The traditional specials coming on. I tire at the anticipation, the effort that goes into trying to find the perfect gifts for the people in my life and then tracking them down. I’m ambivalent at best about teacher presents.

I hate the cold weather, even if it’s usually only chilly with cosmetic snowfall. I enjoy the cozy feeling of getting out the jackets and hats and boots again, and the warmth of the furnace, the car heater, or the added layers of blankets that make it so easy to fall into spontaneous naps. But that’s all more of a side effect of hating the cold.

There are too many treats and parties. Being reminded of traditions can be uncomfortable. Decorating the tree and the house has become largely mechanical. Digging out all of the ornaments that have so many cherished memories attached to them doesn’t trigger the same nostalgia anymore.

I don’t hate getting time off from school, though. That’s great. That might be the exception.

I promise I’m not getting Grinchy in my later-middle-age. I didn’t used to be so down on all of this. I used to love it. I still go through the motions and routines of it all, but none of it has the same feel as it used to. It was all great family time and memory-building, and adding new bits of history each year.

It’s hard to feel celebratory about all the good family times and family memories when the family isn’t whole anymore.

By the way — Happy Birthday, Erin. Wherever you are.

Day 13: Play the Game

There are things about the final season of Game of Thrones that I'm enjoying, but there are things about it -- as well as the previous one -- that just haven't worked. Both people all over the internet and the people in my daily world who watch it are having some real problems with the way this show is going out. Today I'm going to explain what the problems are.

I'm fully aware that not everyone watches Game of Thrones, even though a whole bunch of millions of people do. I didn't follow it until maybe the fifth season or so. It's a good show, albeit a brutal one when it comes to violence and a complete disregard for life. There is only one more episode remaining as I write this.

This final season only has six episodes to it, which didn't seem like much when they announced it, and it really isn't. Sure, they're longer episodes, but that isn't really the point. The point is there are only six of them. And that's the problem.

Episodic television, especially in a show like GoT that jumps between so many concurrent storylines, has limits on what can be accomplished regarding story advancement or character development in any one episode. These past two seasons have seen the show runners trying to bring big fireworks in every episode. That could mean a huge battle, a significant death, a revealed secret, a meeting of characters meant to pay off fandom hopes. This is not how the show has worked in the six previous seasons. Character arcs were given time to evolve. Plots were given time to ebb and flow and breathe before reaching a story climax. Tyrion's arc from killing his father to becoming the Hand of the Queen took forever in timeline, and because of that it felt authentic. Theon's arc from lying about killing Bran to becoming Ramsey Bolton's torture pet to being the man willing to give his life to defend Bran happened throughout the course of most of the show. These last two seasons? "Uh oh, white walkers! Better send a bird to the other side of the continent to the dragon queen so she can be here with her dragons before dark." Then "Yay! We just killed the Night King! Now, instead of taking time to recuperate and strategize like sensible warriors might, let's go dive into another battle of equal measure next Tuesday?"

A story that has been told over tens of thousands of pages and years of television shouldn't be abbreviated. It doesn't do the stories or the characters justice, or at least that's what it seems like is happening.

One episode to go. We'll find out how it all resolves itself next week.

Day 12: Mother

If I ever do finish writing the memoir about my music fandom, I will have to acknowledge the influence of my mother in my origin story. 

Our parents had a modest but fascinating record collection when we were kids, largely dominated by folk music from the 60s and 70s and Broadway musical cast recordings. But mixed in with all of that dated material were a few albums that seemed out of place. As we got older, that became more frequent. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack brought disco into our house, which inspired either me or one of my sisters to buy a Bee Gees album. The Urban Cowboy soundtrack is probably the closest I’ve ever come to willingly listening to country music, even though I was more drawn to the songs by the likes of Joe Walsh and Bob Seger, before I had any idea who they were. 

Mom probably kickstarted my record collecting the day she came home with a vinyl copy of “Paradise Theater” by Styx, and album she’d bought because it had that pretty song from the radio, “The Best of Times.” Sure, pretty song, whatever, but there was a good supply of early 80s rock on it as well, which was enough to elevate Styx to being the first band I was calling my favorite.

Not long after she did the same thing, buying Journey’s “Escape” album because of the pretty songs “Who’s Cryin’ Now” and “Open Arms.” I personally think “Who’s Cryin’ Now” is one of Journey’s weakest, laziest songs, but the rest of Escape is undeniably a great album. I couldn’t stop listening to it. I stared at the album cover long enough that I could draw a fair approximation of it on the inside cover of most of my notebooks at school. 

Mom liked Survivor’s song “Eye of the Tiger,” so that album made it into my parents’ collection (even though I’m certain my dad never played it even once himself). Survivor was just this side of being a one hit wonder, but it was a noisy guitar album and had some great songs. Once the dam had broken from Styx and Journey, I started paying more attention to the music my junior high friends were talking about, which at the time was basically AC/DC and REO Speedwagon. When I started buying music on my own, I’d go for the whole album instead of just buying a single. I’d already seen how deeper album cuts could turn out to be some of the best songs on a record. I figured if I liked the band enough from one song, they’d probably have a few other good ones as well. 

If it wasn’t enough that she’d already modeled for me a lifetime of buying albums for one or two songs, she also ushered in my 15th year by bringing me to my first two concerts. She brought me, my older sister, and our cousin to see Styx on my 15th birthday, and Journey with Bryan Adams as the opening act about a month later. The Styx show was magical for me since it was my first concert, even though the Kilroy Was Here tour is well-documented as a cocaine-fueled disaster full of backstage in-fighting. The Journey show was transcendent. Bryan Adams was just breaking out and had a few foot-stomping radio hits so he had a fun set, but when Journey came blasting onstage and Neal Schon eventually broke into a self-indulgent 10-minute guitar solo, my brain didn’t know what to do with itself. I was hooked. 

So on this Mother’s Day 2019, I want to thank my mom specifically for her role in my being the music fan I am now. It wasn’t driving me to piano lessons, or signing off on the drumming practice minutes you probably knew I wasn’t really doing. It wasn’t just letting us pick the stations on the radio, or the lectures about being careful when I signed up for different rounds of the Columbia House Record and Tape club. 

You were one of the first to teach me to buy the whole album and see the concert when the band came to town, Mom. For that, I will always be grateful. 

Day 11: The Writing on the Wall

Back in February, I wrote a new manuscript. It’s part of a Big Secret Project my agent Carrie and I have been talking about quite a bit this year. The manuscript is shorter than what I typically write, and because the ideas came so blessedly fast, I finished off the first draft in three weeks. Carrie and I talked about it a few weeks after that, once she’d had time to read it. Happily we both felt pretty good about it. At the end of our conversation she said something along the lines of, “If you wrote it in three weeks, you can probably get the revisions done in three more. Does that sound about right?”

I remember thinking, “Ah ha ha, I sure hope you’re joking.” By way of comparison for anyone who has read the manuscript for FOLLOWING INFINITY: We worked through revisions for that over the better part of a year.

Between conversations I have throughout the day with different people and things I post on social media, there are likely a good number of people who might not be completely sure what revision work is, or at least how I do it. Since I need an idea to fill another one of these May posts, I thought I’d give you a brief look into how painstakingly frustrating this work can be.

First of all, let’s start some basic definitions:

Writing: Taking an idea and growing it into a story. This can be done on paper, on a screen, or just in your brain. I see creative writing as a mental activity, not a physical one.

Editing: Fixing mistakes. Getting rid of the typos and spelling errors, cleaning up the grammar, correcting any electronic formatting mistakes. Trying to make the work you’ve done come across as more professional and easier for people to read and understand.

Revising: Making hundreds, if not thousands, of changes to the original writing to improve it. This could be anything from deleting an unnecessary word to reinventing the role of a specific character to adding four or five brand new chapters. Remember that year of FOLLOWING INFINITY revisions? Yeah. New chapters and re-imagined characters all over the place there, to say nothing of deleted words. And characters.

So, moving forward with those things in mind, here’s a very small peek at the new manuscript, and a quick example of the work that goes into revision. For our purposes today, I selected a random paragraph, only chosen because I had already included an editorial note of my own.

I wrote the manuscript more or less as a full first draft, and only went back to do one quick edit before sending it to Carrie. Carrie is a terrifyingly editorial agent, which is actually a good thing, mostly because it keeps me from stressing about making things perfect before I send them to her. I want to her to see the best I can do, but I also know she’s going to find things for me to work on that otherwise never would have occurred to me. Ninety-seven out of a hundred times she’ll be right.

Here you see today's paragraph, pretty close to it’s original state:

This paragraph happens early in the story. It's about two boys, our narrator Kevin and his classmate/rival Charles. Since this manuscript is shorter than the length I’d typically work with it requires a lot of economy. For example, this paragraph has to do these things: help establish that the main character, Kevin (unnamed in this paragraph) has a lot of experience climbing trees; showing Kevin is being challenged by other boys acting as allies against him; showing that his competitor, Charles, is both fairly athletic but probably a less-experienced tree climber; illustrating that the boys have already climbed pretty high.

Now, that highlighted blue box? That’s an editorial comment I left myself. Something about the section I highlighted didn’t work the way I wanted. I usually don’t fix these comments as I spot them because when I’m proofreading during revision, my brain is focused more on finding what to improve than how to improve. Here’s the comment:

So we know Bradley is somewhere on the bad boy spectrum between being a simple jerk and a full-on bully; he isn’t cheering for Charles to be supportive as much as he is to get in Kevin’s head. More importantly, I want to show that Charles got involved in this more for the challenge of climbing the tree and less to put Kevin in his place. This is a moment that will need to establish a lot of groundwork quickly in defining these characters: Bradley, the mouthy punk who tried to climb the tree and failed is now supporting Charles because it’s the only way he has left to come out on top; Kevin is someone easily baited, which Bradley knows; Kevin is very aware of where Charles is during the climb, and it’s important to him to be the first to reach the branch they’re climbing for; Charles is friends with Bradley, so he could be a similarly antagonizing character by association, but in this moment he’s more focused on trying to achieve a goal than trying to win a race. Charles has a lot of internal motivation.

As I reviewed this, I noticed something else, and added this highlighting:

The first red section? It’s about climbing the tree, and Kevin comparing himself to Charles. The second red section? Kevin again comparing himself to Charles. This tells me that either I should move one of these sections to connect them as one continuous idea, or find a way to rewrite them completely so both sections are part of the same idea. Great. Another thing to fix.

The last sentence in the paragraph right now seems okay. It references an earlier moment when Bradley accidentally tore his hockey jacket while trying to climb, and foreshadows things to come by highlighting that Kevin and Charles are already pretty high up, even though they still haven’t reached their goal. So, one sentence out of six that doesn’t need any work. That actually isn’t such a bad batting average.

Just to give some resolution to this post, here’s a revised version of this paragraph which hopefully fixes some of the things I wanted to address. I say “a revised version” because it’s entirely possible, if not likely, that more changes will still be coming.

There you go, a little insight into the lunacy of the revision process. I hope some people found it interesting. One paragraph down, only about 312 more to do. Wish me luck!

Day 10: My Generation

Over the years, I’ve had a recurring dream about returning to school at the end of summer. I know that it’s my school, but nothing about the building is right. The hallways look different, the rooms aren’t in the same place, the whole floor plan is mixed up in unrecognizable ways. One year I found myself making an impossible uphill climb as I tried to walk from the parking lot to the front entrance — not a lot of mystery there, I guess. The way I could always tell it was my school was because of the people.

In my much younger days, there was barely any turnover in our school staff. Someone might retire, someone might move on, but most of the staff stayed in place. When I finally worked my way to the middle of the seniority pack, our staff became even more entrenched. It was always the same people, usually in the same grades. It was predictable and reliable, and in most instances it was comfortable.

Now when it comes to building seniority, I’m #2 on the list, a position I’ll likely hold for the rest of my career since the only person who has taught there longer than I have was a college classmate of mine. Our staff is about to go through a fairly seismic shift when the school year ends in a few weeks, since a good number of people on our staff will be moving on to other positions in other buildings. Three of these people, all of whom will help open a new school next year, are some of the closest friends I still have in the building. Most of my longtime people, the pillars that have held me up and the anchors that have kept me steady, are exiting my life. That may sound dramatic, but it’s true. I’ve been through this process enough times to know that when you work with someone and they move on to a new school, it’s only the rarest of occasions when the two of you are able to maintain a relationship anything like what you’ve had before.

I thought about leaving as well. I applied for jobs at the new schools, and even got as far as interviewing for both. Without getting into specifics, I had a moment during that interview when I knew (or was pretty sure I knew) that leaving my school for a new one was the wrong move for me. I felt confident about that in the immediate moment, and still felt strongly enough days later to withdraw my name from the applicant list. I don’t regret that. I’m sure I’ll still wonder some about the road not taken and what experiences my friends are going to have elsewhere, but I knew for me it was the right thing to do.

That confidence doesn’t make my school any more of a home for me, though. That feeling comes more from the people you work with than it does from the location, or the neighborhood, or the familiar way the rooms smell on the day you move in at the end of the summer. There are still many people at my school that I get along well with, some that I’ve known for a long time and some I’ve only been getting to know better during the past few years. There are just so many fewer people there that I’ll have the same kind of history with.

I think of these three friends and colleagues. Two of them have children who have been in my classes. Two of them I’ve taught with as partners. Two of them I’ve known longer than they’ve had children. I have ancient running jokes with all of them, and I won’t get to share those anymore.

I’m running out of longtime friends.

They’re spreading around the district, and, to be frank, maintaining such friendships isn’t always easy when you’re friends with women who have spouses and children, and you’re a guy who doesn’t have either. For whatever reason, that suburban dynamic never seems to stick.

I turn 51 in a couple of weeks, which means I’ve got somewhere in the ballpark of ten years left in my teaching career. Pulling out of contention for the jobs at new schools left me in a position where I know I’m going to be staying at my school for the duration, and I believe I’ll be expected to take on even more of official and unofficial leadership roles than I already have in my career. Everything my career has been up to this point and what it will be when these changes roll over into reality next year will represent two different eras.

I just need to figure out what this next stage with my new professional relationships and friendships will look like.

Day 9: Constructive Summer

I don't know what it was, exactly.

I didn't have a bad day. Comparatively I had an incredibly easy day at school. A test during each block of math, working on go-cart designs during each block of science. Recess duty without any fires to put out, no behavior problems to deal with. Overall it wasn't a bad day. Still, I felt like a sack of room temperature oatmeal by the end of it. No energy, no motivation, no will to do anything but go home and wait until I fell asleep sitting on the couch beside my dog.

For the record, I didn't sleep great the night before. I usually have podcasts playing in the background all night long like a white noise machine, and I think they were turned up just loud enough to keep me from falling asleep for real. Won't be making that mistake again tonight, I can tell you.

I was so tired by the end of the day that I really felt the weight of the school year ending. We're in the teens now when it comes to counting the remaining student days, and I caught myself running through the variables of what was left: How many more times I had recess, how many more PLCs I had to attend, how many more days of lessons plans I still have to write, how many more days I have to live through the smell of my 32 fifth graders after they finish Phy. Ed.

It didn't feel like the right way to anticipate summer. Countdowns should ideally be counting how much time remains until something good happens instead of how much time there still is until something ends. There are a lot of endings associated with this school year that aren't all good, so I really tried to think of a way to reframe the time left.

I have some projects in mind that I'm looking forward to beginning. Those are all long-term things though, the kind of projects to work on a little bit at a time and hope there's some progress to show for the efforts by the time school starts again. I don't really have any big, defining thing about this summer to look forward to right now.

Usually there's something. There's something wrong about having some 70-80 days off from work and not taking advantage of it for one big project or adventure or event. There have been a few vacations, or weekends based around family weddings, or home improvement steps like getting everything inside repainted. Last summer was easily defined by bringing a dog into my home.

This summer, at least so far? Not really much of anything.

Travel would be easy, but it's kind of tricky right now. I'd need a place for Freddie to stay where he'd be comfortable and safe. That means either someone staying with him at my house or him going somewhere I know he won't be scared or try to run away from. I refuse to put him in a kennel since he's already had too much of that in his life, and I don't know what kind of trip I could take with him that would be truly relaxing.

Home improvement? Maybe. There's certainly cleaning to do, but I'd have to think about what I'd need or want done that would qualify as a major project.

Part of me feels like falling into a routine with different things to work on won't be so bad if that's how break turns out. But it feels like a wasted opportunity if I don't take more advantage of it.

It's a good thing I still have eighteen days of school lunches to figure something out.

Day 8: Cooking Class

I grew up in a house where we used cooking sheets for pizza. Once we even had a layered pan with holes in it to help the crust crisp up, I guess. My sister had a pizza stone a few years ago, and I was impressed. I once saw my cousin putting a pizza in the oven on a sheet of aluminum foil with no pan or sheet or anything. It blew my mind when he took it out with his bare hands.

Never in my life did it occur to me to ever put a frozen pizza directly on the oven rack.

First of all, because why would you? How dirty is that thing, probably? I know, there’s the argument about self-cleaning ovens. Even though my oven does have that self-cleaning feature, I’m not big on the idea of turning up my oven temperature to something that would approximate the surface of the sun.

If I cook a frozen pizza now — not something that happens weekly or anything, but frequent enough that I know my routine — I put it on a baking sheet lined with foil. This keeps the pizza a nice safe distance from any oven nastiness, and at the same time keeps the pizza off the sheet so it doesn’t have to be washed. It works pretty well. Maybe this kind of thing puts some people in the mind of Phil Hartman’s old SNL character The Anal-Retentive Chef, but it works for me and keeps a pan out of the dishwasher. Win win.

If you put your frozen pizza right on the oven rack, I can’t relate to your thinking. I guess whatever works for you and makes you happy is something you should just go ahead and keep on doing…unless you put mayonnaise on hot dogs, because then I’m pretty sure something is wrong with you.

My teaching partner and I had this discussion today from opposite sides of the issue. She posted it as a question on Facebook, and, at least at my most recent check, the number of misguided souls who put their pizzas directly on the oven rack are outnumbering the ones who live lives of measured common sense.

I have a hard time caring about losing this argument, though.

In the end we’re talking about frozen pizza.

By definition, they’re all a little disgusting.

Day 7: Routine

I’m not looking for sympathy here. Really, I'm not. Today's post is more about thinking out loud.

I know full well there are three types of people in the world: (1) Those who work in education and understand how relaxing and restorative it is to have summers off, (2) those who don’t work in education but have enough perspective about it to empathize with teachers and appreciate why having that much time off is valuable for us, and (3) the people who think they know better and are all too quick to criticize teachers and think they went into the profession because it’s such a sweet gig to get the summers off, so all those ungrateful teachers should stop complaining about everything.

Again, I’m not asking for sympathy. But if you’re someone who even has a toe on the line of that third category -- if you really need to constantly bathe in your own self-righteous ignorance, please keep it to yourself. Also you might want to skip the rest of this post because it will probably irritate you.

As the school year is ending, I’m in a pretty good place. In fact, a lot of my school year has been pretty good. It hasn’t been perfect, but one very helpful part has been the schedule I’ve worked with. It’s been nice most days, hitting the ground running as we start the day and maintaining that pace for a few hours, then having the afternoon to catch up, spin down, and even start thinking ahead to the next day.

It has me thinking that it might be a good idea to construct a mostly regular schedule to follow during summer break. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful thing to have the chance as an adult to spend a day (or days, or weeks) with nothing to do and all day to do it. But too much of that can easily become too much. I know myself well enough to understand how much I need structure.

I can’t have a daily schedule broken down by half-hour or hour increments, because that would stress me out when I slip off of it, which I would. I think it’d be nice to have regular things to do each day, with the built-in flexibility to occasionally skip them when there are other demands. I know I’ll have a list of summer chores I hope to accomplish, and a list of summer adventures I’d like to have as well. I’m probably going to have to do more school work than usual this year, with two new curriculum packages to learn. In past years I’ve covered my refrigerator door with Post-It notes in an effort to make my To Do List more engaging. That’s only worked sometimes though, and usually leaves me feeling guilty about some of the things I never got around to doing.

The question is, what do I build into that structure? How much time do I allot for daily tasks, or household chores? What things do I want to have accomplished by the end of the summer that I could break down into small, daily steps? What experiences do I want to have that would best be pursued with all of this time off? I spent a lot of time sitting around my house reading and watching TV last year, but all of that was with the goal of helping my newly-adopted pal Freddie gradually acclimate to his new home. This year shouldn't have to be the same.

Working this out is a minor problem, if it’s a problem at all. And it’s surely a nice one to have.