You’re in the water!

I wish I could arbitrarily declare a new rule or boundry and everyone just had to accept it.

I took the little miss to a playground after work and school today. She mostly played on her own or with me but for a little while she played with a few older girls.

The leader of the group was clearly enjoying her dictatorship and making sure to announce the next thing in order to keep all the other girls off balance and unable to declare some different idea. At one point there were four little girls on a large teeter totter and one of the girls wasn’t listening to the older boss girl. The girl in charge was getting frustrated and making demands but this younger girl really wanted to get her plastic shovel that was off in the sand. The younger girl got off of the teeter totter and started walking towards her shovel. The girl in charge, clearly having excercised all of her options, used the only weapon she had left. The younger girl had gotten two steps away from her shovel when the girl in charge shouted, “you’re in the water. You can’t be in the water. Get back in the boat.”

That’s right, this little girl changed the reality for all the other girls involved. Just moments ago the teeter totter was a car and they were driving somewhere, but she made a new declaration and the car disappeared and the road instantly turned to sea. At least, those changes happened for her and the little girls on the teeter totter. The girl heading for the shovel was faced with a dilemma and it really stopped her for a moment. She absolutely, without question, needed to get this plastic shovel. But, about the worst breech of ettiquette for children is to not accept the rules of a game. Even when those rules are changed in an instant and only changed to serve the interests of one bossy little girl. It’s okay to make the world change by declaring something new, it’s not okay to ignore the new declaration. I don’t know why this is how the playground works but it is.

The little girl who needed that damn shovel, though, determined that her need for the shovel was greater than her need to obey the rules of the pack. She took the last two steps to get her shovel. The girl in charge was irritated and the sea disappeared. The other little girls invovled got off of the teeter totter and everyone moved on to their own things. No one could maintain the fantasy at that point because it had been proven false.

Someday I’m going to be in a meeting at work and I’m going to want someone to stop saying literally the most boring thing in the world ( this happens at every meeting I’ve ever been in, sometimes I say it) and I will declare that no one in a blue shirt can use nouns and maybe, just maybe everyone will accept it and the boring will stop. Or maybe the boring shovel will win.

LW

Illusive speed

I love

running

on an incredibly

windy day.

I can

pretend

that I’m

extremely

fast.

LW

Make friends or die

I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m not complaining, I know a lot of people, I just don’t maintain friendships particularly well. And now, according to this article this lack of friends is a health risk. I exercise alone, I stand alone in the other room while everyone enjoys dessert, and now I find out that I should be a fat and happy social butterfly if I want a long and healthy life.

Why didn’t someone tell me this ten years ago?

Would anyone like to be my friend and go get some cake?

LW

Old Habits

Here’s something I’ve done on my blog in the past. A story in progress. You read it as I write it.

Part One

Old Habits

Is it still against the law to harbor a fugitive if you didn’t know he was a fugitive and you didn’t know he was living in your shed for three weeks?  This is the question Arthur has been asking himself since he saw Trent’s name and picture on the local evening news yesterday. Arthur hadn’t seen or spoken to Trent in nearly three years when he one day discovered him walking down the alley behind Arthur’s house.

This sudden appearance was only a momentary surprise for Arthur. It was the nature of their friendship that they would have protracted fallow periods with no contact and then Trent would suddenly show up where ever Arthur was living or Arthur would spot Trent walking through the airport as they happened to be catching different flights to different places but leaving from the same city. These coincidental airport meetings had happened on three separate occasions.

When Arthur approached him in the alley Trent initially acted surprised to see him, as though he had no idea that he was less than a block away from Arthur’s house. It took less than a minute for Trent to admit that he knew where Arthur lived. It took three drinks on Arthur’s porch furniture for Trent to reveal that he had been using Arthur’s shed as an apartment for several weeks.

Arthur said, “you know, I would have let you stay in the house like a human being. It’s no mansion, but I like to think it’s got more to offer than the place where I keep the tool box I never use.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know I was around.”
“Who am I going to talk to about the dead beat stinking up my house?”
“I figured,” said Trent, “that if you didn’t know I was here then you wouldn’t have to lie if anyone asked about me.”
“Lie? Did you do something? Are you in trouble?”
“I’m not in trouble as long as nobody knows I’m here.” A heavy wind pushed a plastic candy wrapper down the street and carried with it the smell of a fire several blocks away. It had that scent of quality wood burning, cedar probably. Someone was getting their fire-pit ready for an evening of roasting meat, drinking beer, and getting progressively louder as more and more people around them turned in for the night.
“And you don’t think,” Arthur said, “anyone would have noticed the weird bearded guy living in my shed? The beards a nice touch, by the way, certainly makes you look less suspicious.”
Trent dragged one of his large hands across his hair-covered cheek, scratching a patch of dry skin or emphasizing the fullness of his beard or both. “With this lovely high privacy fencing you’ve got I wasn’t too worried about it. Even you didn’t notice me in your backyard for almost a month, so I’m thinking your block club isn’t running the tightest neighborhood watch program.”

Opinions?

Suggestions

More to come

LW

I want to dance

Today, my little miss started her first ever dance class. It’s a ballet tap combo for 31/2 to 41/2 year olds.

She had a terrific time and is looking forward to next week.

And I walked away feeling jealous. I’ve never studied dance. Of all the random interests I’ve pursued either via books, a few community education lessons, or a more formalized series of classes I’ve interested in various kinds of dance for a long time but it’s something I’ve stayed away from.

I know I can learn dance moves and I would certainly appreciate the exercise component of it, so I don’t know what the hesitation is.

Actually, I do know. The dance genres and styles I would most like to learn are ballet, hip-hop, tap or maybe some combination of all three. These are all dance styles that adult, white men should, for the most part, avoid trying to pull off. If I had started studying any of these as a child or even as a teen I could claim some legitimacy in my interest but as someone in his 30s it would take me quite a while to overcome the concern that I was trying to be cool or reclaim a youthfulness.

I don’t really enjoy being young or youthful, but I enjoy even less the possibility that I’ll be percieved as though I’m trying to act cool or young. And shame and a self-consciousness would probably be a big hinderance in trying to learn a dance style.  Plus, the recital would be a huge source of stress.

The other reason I don’t take tap lessons or learn how to dance hip-hop is because I hold folks who do those things well in such high regard and I would always be frustrated I wasn’t at their level. I’m not a good beginner. I want to be an immediate expert. So, maybe I should take a tap class and experience that feeling of being terrible at something and yet maybe having fun. Perhaps I could learn that being bad at something won’t hurt me and I don’t need to be great at something to enjoy doing it.

Or, maybe I’m a natural and within 1 year of my first tap class I’ll be opening for Savion Glover.

Maybe?

LW