Monday, April 07, 2008

Insomnia

After a late night snack and getting sucked into watching Blade II on television, I took a short catnap and found myself awake at 3:30am. So, I popped into the computer room to do a little web surfing and I hear some noises coming from Katie's room.

So, I pull up the "cribcam" and my little girl is sitting in the corner of her crib running her hands through one of her doll's hair. She's been doing that now for the past 20 minutes or so. Sometimes, she will get up, walk around the crib, or flip through one of her books.



Did I mention we have the sweetest, most well-tempered little girl in the universe?

-Ed

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Deep Breathes!

Ok, I feel better than I did 24 hours ago. Just needed to work out a little frustration on this virtual punching bag. In the end, everyone found a way to still do what was practical and find ways to rework things so that "face" was saved. But, through this process I'm completely drained and, unfortunately, am far, far away from ever thinking of extending similar offers to anyone.

When I was in grade school I worked at "Our Daily Bread", a soup kitchen in Baltimore. I would spend hours there on the weekend... banging out some tunes on the piano, serving food, and generally hanging out. Coincidentally, every summer my father would take me and some neighborhood friends to an amusement park.. usually Hershey Park or Kings Dominion. While it was great fun for us, it was also an excuse for him to fly somewhere. So, on a few occasions, he would stuff us all in his Beechcraft Bonanza and we would skip over to the airport nearest the amusement park and spend the day. Was that the most efficient way to do things? heck no. Did it give him the excuse he needed to fly? Absolutely.

These two stories came together as one day I was talking to a boy my age who both worked at, and ate in, the soup kitchen. We were friends and he was a big part of why I went down there so much during the summer. As I was talking about the approaching amusement park trip he would get very excited -- having not been to one himself. There was, clearly, only one thing to do: he was to come with us when we went that next month.

So, coming home that day, I announced to my dad that another friend would be coming along. Dad, of course, said fine... there was room for one more in the plane. That began, of course, the saga. That next Saturday problems arose. My friend was told he couldn't go because of the cost. My dad said he would pay for everything. My friend's parents protested that they didn't know who we were. My dad noted he used to be a public figure and wasn't about to go on a kidnapping rampage. When they found out a plane was involved things got worse. It all culminated in my friend's father calling my father and demanding that my dad drive to his house and show him a copy of his pilot's license.

Well, my dad had a limit, and that was it. And I'll never forget it when my friend knew he wasn't going to go. After that summer I didn't volunteer at the soup kitchen again. I'm sure my friend turned out OK and such is the nature of grade-school summer friendships, be they made in summer camps or soup kitchens. But I'll never forget how disappointed he was to not be going, and how silly it seemed to us that there was no real reason he couldn't go. Just pride, really. Pride from a pair of parents who, seemingly, would rather their child only had good experiences that they provided.

I never had a chance to tell me father how proud I was of him for how much he put up with that whole fiasco, and how generous he was in his offers. I also never got a chance to let him know that I have come to understand his frustration. I've had a few "come over and show my your pilot's license" moments in my life.

There is a line between helper and doormat. IN fact, I think that's been one of the defining realizations that has come from being a parent. For my little girl I am a doormat. A complete and total doormat. We do whatever we can for her needs -- adjust sleep schedules, keep her ingrained with her extended family, watch her food variety, tape cut up pool noodles over all of our tables, and anything else to make her 18 month existence as pleasant as possible (including a healthy dose of what NO means to try and ward off a rampaging 2 year old). And of course, she pays us back with unconditional love. When she falls and hurts herself, she runs to mommy and daddy. When she is tired and wants to go to bed, or when she wakes up with a nightmare, or when she is proud of some new "dance move", it's right to mommy and daddy. When I walk in the door from work and she runs through the house screaming like a mad woman and then demands that I pick her up and carry her around.... that makes everything we do worthwhile.

Those are the relationships that deserve the diligence. Outside of our children, how rare they are!

Saturday, April 05, 2008

The Glass Ceiling

one of my favorite birthday cards, gifted to me when I turned 16, depicted a cartoon spaceship, with a cartoon astronaut inside, pushing into, and being limited by, a bluish fabric rendition of "the sky". Across the top of the card was written "The Sky's The Limit". A though bubble from the astronaut read, simply, "Drat".

What I loved so much about that card was how it embodied my approach to life -- yes, even at 16. What such approach? Do the best that you can -- aim for perfect and be happy with what you achieve. That gets called pride alot, but it isn't. I push myself hard but most of the time it's because I've always felt the need to "catch up". When someone does something not as good as I do, I don't think "ha! I do this better", I think "wow, if I can do this then anybody can do this.".

I've been accused over the years of being preachy, of being elitist, of being proud, judgmental, phony. You name it and some cretin somewhere has thought it. What they don't get, in their own judgments of me, is that my actions aren't about them. The long e-mails, the sometimes unsolicited offers of advise.... Why? To what end and for what point? Quite simple, really: to have done less meant to have given up on something, or to have let something go unsaid which might have been interesting or helpful. To have done less is, to me, to have committed the sin of omission.

I refuse to believe that refusing to submit to the bystander effect is synonymous with arrogance.

I'm beginning to wonder if committing the sin of omission is worth it just to avoid backlashes. Case in point, most recently I tried to do what I thought was a good deed. To properly sanitize the story, the offer was first politely and then very impolitely refused. Why? I cannot fathom. Were the situations reversed, I'd accept such a thing in an instant.

But, too often people don't make decisions based on practicality, they make decisions based on what makes them feel important. People have their glass ceilings -- those limits you can't see until you've bumped up against them. I'm sure I have mine, but this is at least the third time in a month that I've bumped up against someone else's.

And, I suppose, in part there is a fear -- my own glass ceiling -- that while I really do try and bend over backwards for others I see these moments as an omen that others just won't bend over backwards for me. You see, the biggest way that Karma can be a bitch is if it doesn't exist at all...

So, face pressed firmly up against a few glass ceilings, what on earth is one to do? Treat life as a zero-sum game? Take my marbles and go play somewhere else? Walk away from that particular train wreck? Go banging on the glass?

For now, I suppose a rambling blog entry will just have to suffice, followed by some reflection on just where my place is in some other people's worlds. If I'm to be taught that no good deed goes unpunished then I imagine I'll have a sharp learning curve ahead.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

About Face(book)

For years my on-line presence had been this little vanity press... a place to talk about my attempts at home improvement, insights into myself, the people around me, and life in general. Occasionally I'd be blessed enough to be mauled by a barber or fall asleep in class or choke on horseradish and I'd have some instant humorous banter to pass along.

And I would go on and on wondering just who this virtual publication was for... me, future me, posterity, children, parents, readers. Because, as any reader of this space knows, my blog evolved into a purpose -- a circuitous way to write everyday letters to some special people in my life who aren't here anymore. And, of course, I thought that's what a blog should be, and when I couldn't do that here anymore, this place became more than a little stuffy. Overbearing, really.

And then my friends pulled me into facebook. Yeah... go figure. Facebook.. Den of six degrees of freedom. Death by a thousand application requests. But, useful to see how a few dozen people are doing every few hours. So I put a few pictures up, wrote on some walls, reconnected with a few people from college...

And that's when I had my about face (book). I had another avenue for on-line self-expression, one unencumbered with a weighty past. I'd thought long and hard about starting a new blog... picking up shop and hanging my pseudo-anonymous literary shingle on some other ethereal block. Maybe I just needed a long break because I'm typing this blog for the first time in a long time without feeling melancholy.

So, I suppose, it's true. Time can heal lots of things, even the fear of moving on.